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Labourites line up - Battered Bruce takes centre stage; Chang's supporters to stay away
Published: Sunday | November 21, 2010
Bruce Golding
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
THE STAGE is set for an explosive public session at the 67th Annual Conference of the Jamaica Labour Party today, with party leader and Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, trying to recapture diminishing popularity, and with inescapable agenda items like the allegations of murder plots surrounding James Robertson, minister of mining and energy, and an economy for which the forecast is less than inspiring.
However, the conference will be without delegates of North West St James, the constituency held by Dr Horace Chang. He told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday afternoon that he had taken the decision to withdraw his constituents "to reduce aggravation" and to facilitate restoration of the party's integrity.
"Now is not a good time to go. Emotions are running high, and if they go to conference and should anything unfortunate happen, it would be difficult to control, and we don't want that. The primary reason is not that we are upset with the party, but if arguments develop, we can't control a crowd of 10,000 people. This could aggravate the wounds, which we need to heal," said Chang.
Tension has been mounting in the St James constituency since last week when Chang was unseated as deputy leader of the party by Dr Christopher Tufton.
Asked whether he would be attending the conference, Chang said, "I have not made up my mind fully."
Private session
The mass turnout expected for the conference at the National Arena follows last week's departure from the norm when the private session of the annual conference was held in four different locations to stave off a potential flare-up among fired-up delegates of Area Council Four.
The feature item will be the presentation by Golding in what is expected to be an attempt to bolster his waning popularity.
The party has had very little to cheer about, dogged as it has been by an obdurate Manatt, Phelps & Phillips controversy that will not go away.
But the party can take some comfort in keeping to a minimum flare-ups and threats of violence in last week's internal election involving Dr Christopher Tufton, Dr Horace Chang, and Arnold Foote.
In a historic, if politically shrewd, move, the leadership of the JLP convened four separate private sessions of the four area councils in the lead-up to today's confab.
In so doing, the party confined the acrimony that marred internal elections in the JLP to the past.
The 1992 physical assaults on journalists and JLP supporters during a deputy-leadership election that year, as well as the tainted money scandal during another deputy-leadership election in 2004, are classic cases in point.
A prominent insider told The Sunday Gleaner that the leadership is quite satisfied with its success in achieving comparative peace going into the public session.
JLP insiders told The Sunday Gleaner that Prime Minister Bruce Golding sought to shore up his flagging public image at the private session of Area Council One that was held in his western Kingston constituency.
The spraying of People's National Party-flavoured graffiti in Golding's heavily policed stronghold by unknown persons has not done anything for Golding's weakening political image coming into the conference.
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Published: Sunday | November 21, 2010
Bruce Golding
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
THE STAGE is set for an explosive public session at the 67th Annual Conference of the Jamaica Labour Party today, with party leader and Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, trying to recapture diminishing popularity, and with inescapable agenda items like the allegations of murder plots surrounding James Robertson, minister of mining and energy, and an economy for which the forecast is less than inspiring.
However, the conference will be without delegates of North West St James, the constituency held by Dr Horace Chang. He told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday afternoon that he had taken the decision to withdraw his constituents "to reduce aggravation" and to facilitate restoration of the party's integrity.
"Now is not a good time to go. Emotions are running high, and if they go to conference and should anything unfortunate happen, it would be difficult to control, and we don't want that. The primary reason is not that we are upset with the party, but if arguments develop, we can't control a crowd of 10,000 people. This could aggravate the wounds, which we need to heal," said Chang.
Tension has been mounting in the St James constituency since last week when Chang was unseated as deputy leader of the party by Dr Christopher Tufton.
Asked whether he would be attending the conference, Chang said, "I have not made up my mind fully."
Private session
The mass turnout expected for the conference at the National Arena follows last week's departure from the norm when the private session of the annual conference was held in four different locations to stave off a potential flare-up among fired-up delegates of Area Council Four.
The feature item will be the presentation by Golding in what is expected to be an attempt to bolster his waning popularity.
The party has had very little to cheer about, dogged as it has been by an obdurate Manatt, Phelps & Phillips controversy that will not go away.
But the party can take some comfort in keeping to a minimum flare-ups and threats of violence in last week's internal election involving Dr Christopher Tufton, Dr Horace Chang, and Arnold Foote.
In a historic, if politically shrewd, move, the leadership of the JLP convened four separate private sessions of the four area councils in the lead-up to today's confab.
In so doing, the party confined the acrimony that marred internal elections in the JLP to the past.
The 1992 physical assaults on journalists and JLP supporters during a deputy-leadership election that year, as well as the tainted money scandal during another deputy-leadership election in 2004, are classic cases in point.
A prominent insider told The Sunday Gleaner that the leadership is quite satisfied with its success in achieving comparative peace going into the public session.
JLP insiders told The Sunday Gleaner that Prime Minister Bruce Golding sought to shore up his flagging public image at the private session of Area Council One that was held in his western Kingston constituency.
The spraying of People's National Party-flavoured graffiti in Golding's heavily policed stronghold by unknown persons has not done anything for Golding's weakening political image coming into the conference.
MORE
