Derrick Smith, deputy leader of the Jamaica Labour Party, in conversation with Grace Ann Cameron-Small, president of the St. Andrew Junior Chamber, at the club's meeting on Tuesday night at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, where he was the guest speaker. - Winston Sill / Freelance Photographer

Deputy Leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Derrick Smith, is predicting that the JLP will form the next Government by winning a minimum of 38 of the 60 available seats.

Mr. Smith made the prediction Tuesday night while addressing a St. Andrew Junior Chamber meeting at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston.

He also dismissed prophetic claims made by Dr. Phillip Phinn, a prophet from the Word of Life Ministries International, who said that the People's National Party would win the upcoming general elections.

"There is a small group of individuals claiming to be prophets, claiming to be able to predict the outcome of the elections," he said. "But I am saying that's nonsense and I am saying it is a deliberate 'samfie' effort to trick the electors of this country."

Dr. Phinn has repeatedly said that God had ordained Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to rule for another seven years.

Its own predictions

But Mr. Smith pointed out that the JLP could make its own predictions because it has done an analysis of every parish council division and every constituency.

"It is based on that educated effort that I am in a position to predict, based on detailed analysis, and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise," he said.

Mr. Smith said, based on the current analysis, the JLP is expecting to take a minimum of 38 seats and a maximum of 42 to form the next government.

"So that small group of persons who are on a mission to confuse the electorate and to say that they are prophets and that they have divine gift ... if you believe in them, you will believe in obeah."