WESTERN BUREAU:
PEOPLE'S NATIONAL Party (PNP) president Portia Simpson Miller has dismissed comments from party colleagues criticising her for continuing to wear yellow, her presidential campaign colour, instead of the party's traditional orange.
There have been suggestions from persons within the PNP that Mrs. Simpson Miller's continued wearing of her presidential campaign colours, as well as her failure to curb her supporters from wearing Team Portia paraphernalia since the party presidential election in February is creating disunity within the PNP.
But speaking with The Gleaner after the Eastern Westmoreland by-election on Wednesday night, Mrs. Simpson Miller rejected such claims. "The people are wearing all the candidates' T-shirts out there and there is no longer Team Portia," she said. "I indicated that after the election there would be Team Jamaica because once I become Prime Minister I am Prime Minister for everyone. For the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), the National Democratic Movement (NDM), the PNP and a large number of persons who sport no Ps at all."
Dismissing the suggestions as idle talk, Mrs. Simpson Miller said this was not the first time that a PNP president has chosen a colour other than that of the party's tradition. "When Michael Manley emerged as the leader of the party and Prime Minister the colour of the party was then red and black," she said. "It was changed to orange."
