Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter

'I am committed to renewing the PNP ... around some philosophy capable of national development.

PEOPLE'S NATIONAL Party (PNP) presidential challenger, Dr Peter Phillips, has dismissed claims by Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller that his corner never accepted her embrace after she won the party's presidency in 2006.

In a Gleaner interview published yesterday, Simpson Miller said the Phillips team had decided from 2006 that it would challenge her for the party's top job.

"They were working on their challenge from that time," Simpson Miller said.

She added: "I embraced until my hands hurt. Now, I hear that I did not reach out enough."

However, Phillips said that Simpson Miller's claims are simply not true.

"I don't know what constituted that embrace," Phillips told The Gleaner yesterday, adding that he is not certain how Simpson Miller attempted to unify the party.

"There was never a conversation after the election which said 'here we are now; it has been done. None of us got 50 per cent of the votes, what are your views on how to go forward?'" Phillips told The Gleaner.

He said members of his 'Solid as a Rock' team which lost the presidential election fully accepted and cooperated with Simpson Miller.

"We worked in every way possible. We did what we were asked, we did even more than we were asked," Phillips said.

The outgoing vice-president pointed to the party's manifesto which he helped to produce after the task was given to other persons who were not delivering on time.

renewing, uniting

Phillips had worked on or led every manifesto committee of the PNP since 1989. He told The Gleaner that he is committed to renewing the PNP and uniting it around some critical philosophy capable of leading to national development.

The PNP, Phillips said, needs to get to a point where political education is at the centre.

"The country faces urgent problems in a different world," Phillips said, adding that the PNP must lead the way in finding solutions to the problems of crime and violence.

Educational transformation and the transformation of Jamaica's inner cities have also been listed by Phillips as issues to which the PNP must provide answers.

The PNP lost the September 2007 general election by less than 3,000 votes as the Jamaica Labour Party captured 32 of the 60 seats in the bicameral House of Representatives.

the loss

Simpson Miller's decision to have the election seven weeks after announcing the date has been singled out as one of the reasons the PNP lost.

Despite leading the party to the general-election defeat and then a local-government loss, Simpson Miller continues to outdo Phillips in opinion polls.

Nearly 4,500 delegates of the PNP will vote today to either retain Simpson Miller as party president, or to elevate Phillips to the post.

Simpson Miller won by 247 votes to replace P.J. Patterson in 2006.