bDaraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Shaw

AFTER 26 years at the crease as councillor for the Morant Bay division, the name Rose-Marie Shaw will cease to appear on ballots as the candidate in local government elections.

Shaw, the People's National Party (PNP) constituency caretaker for Western St. Thomas, was soundly beaten in the recent general election by the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) James Robertson.

Robertson polled 9,581 votes to Shaw's 7,442. Shaw, however, insists that she has not been injured by the defeat and that her no-show in municipal elections is not an indication that she has retired hurt.

"It is not that I have beaten into submission at all. I think that after 26 years at that level, I needed to move on," Shaw tells The Sunday Gleaner.

switched allegiance

A past student of Morant Bay High, Shaw, 48, parachuted into politics at an early age. She first became councillor at age 22, then she became a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) member. However, after three terms as a JLP member and councillor, she switched allegiance to the PNP ahead of the 1998 elections.

Again, the residents of Morant Bay gave Shaw the mandate to be their councillor and she served two terms.

However, when Franklyn Sephestine was nominated as the PNP candidate for Morant Bay last Monday, it closed a major chapter in Shaw's political career, but she is adamant that it's not over.

"I can boast of the fact that people were clamouring for me to run again as the candidate for Morant Bay," Shaw says.

She adds: "But when you play your innings, you need to give someone else a chance to go to the wicket.

"Ever since I accepted the job as caretaker for Western St. Thomas, I had made the decision not to run as councillor and I am always forthright in my decisions," Shaw says.

After her quarter-century reign as councillor of Morant Bay, the St. Thomas capital remains one of the most congested and unsightly towns in Jamaica.

still popular

Shaw maintains that she has done well and says that the fact that people still want her is a testimony to the representation she has made.

"The only outstanding issue in that division is a central sewage system for Morant Bay," Shaw says.

And while she leaves that job for her successor, Shaw tells The Sunday Gleaner that she will now finally get a chance to invest in her personal and social life, an aspect that has never got her full attention because of 26 years of public service. She says, too, that she will never abandon her role as constituency caretaker for West St. Thomas.