Maureen Webber (standing left), former People's National Party (PNP) deputy general secretary and member of TEAM PNP, observes proceedings at the Mico Practising and Junior High in St Andrew School yesterday, where group nomination forms were distributed for the upcoming party presidential elections. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer

DESPITE THE vast majority of People's National Party (PNP) delegates still being unknown, the challenger for the job of party president remains confident he will win the September 20 election.

"There is no possibility of a loss," Dr Peter Phillips told journalists yesterday.

He also dismissed speculations, that there would be no place in the PNP for Portia Simpson Miller and the persons who embrace her if he becomes president.

"There is a place for every Comrade in the PNP that I lead," Phillips said.

He was speaking at the Mico Practising and Junior High School in St Andrew yesterday. Where the PNP secretariat was issuing nomination forms for delegates.

Simpson Miller is being challenged for the job she assumed in February 2006, after P.J. Patterson retired. She polled 1,775 votes to defeat a field which included Phillips (1,538), Dr Omar Davies (283) and Dr Karl Blythe (204) in a bruising contest.

It is the first time in the history of the 70-year-old PNP that a president is being challenged but Phillips has said that Comrades must allow the democratic tradition of the party to live again.

Team PNP, Simpson Miller's campaign, is confident that the democracy within the party will see her being returned as president.

Colin Campbell former PNP general secretary told The Gleaner that TEAM PNP "is very confident that the delegates will vote for Comrade Simpson Miller to continue as party president".

Big win expected for Portia

While unwilling to speculate on how the numbers will go, Campbell said Simpson Miller would win big in three of the PNP's six regions and will be very competitive in the others.

Despite the struggle for leader-ship, PNP supporters appeared united yesterday.

"A Portia straight. Yuh a mi daddy oh, but is Portia wi want," one woman told Phillips, who took it with a smile.

Not far away, another woman bellowed; "Mi love Sista P, a mi madda, but a Peter straight."