Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter

Karl Samuda (right), general secretary of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), greets Dwight Nelson, information spokesman for the JLP. Looking on is Marcia Forbes, volunteer at the JLP's media centre. Occasion was a press briefing held yesterday at the JLP's media centre at the Hilton Kingston hotel. - Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has recommended to the Electoral Commission the postponement of voting in two polling divisions in Central Manchester.

The JLP made the request, claiming that their supporters and workers are being intimidated, following the killing of four persons in the Georges Valley area Friday night.

The People's National Party (PNP) says the murder of the four, including three women, is politically motivated, but the police say they have no such evidence.

"What this threatens to develop into is a pattern that, if not stopped and stopped immediately, will form the basis for intimidation at the local level, the likes of which we have not seen," Karl Samuda, general secretary of the JLP, told reporters yesterday at a press conference held at the JLP's media centre at the Hilton Kingston hotel.

Indoor agents moving out

According to Samuda, persons who had previously committed to work as indoor agents for the JLP in polling divisions 41 and 58 in Central Manchester have now declined and are in the process of moving out of the area.

"We cannot have an election in an environment of fear so that our workers feel threatened to go into the polling stations to do the job of the JLP," the general secretary said.

He added: "This is why I have called and spoken to our representative and commissioner of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica, Tom Tavares-Finson, to make representation on our behalf to have polling divisions 41 and 58 suspended in the next general elections so that polling can be taken at another time when it can be supervised by the police and the army ... "

Samuda told The Sunday Gleaner that he expects to hear from the electoral commission by today.

Raring to go

The JLP general secretary said his party is ready and raring to go for tomorrow's poll.

"The Jamaica Labour Party is poised for victory," he said. "We feel confident that the Jamaica Labour Party has done its work. We have been in the field for over a year ...

"The Jamaica Labour Party is as ready for the election on September 3 as we could ever be. We are as prepared for that poll as we have ever been and perhaps we could ever be ... ," he told reporters.

He said the JLP has added new advertisements and was expected to intensify its commercials last night through to 12:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

"We want to ... maintain our dominant position on the airwaves."