Tweet
Mayor of Kingston Desmond McKenzie is to replace former Prime Minister Bruce Golding as the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) representative in West Kingston.
Golding quit as prime minister on Sunday and is to end his term as JLP leader at the party's annual conference on November 20.
However, he has been deafeningly silent on his plans for representational politics which he entered in 1972 with a victory in Western St Catherine.
"I was first elected to Parliament almost 40 years ago. In the next two months, I will be 64. I feel it is time for me and people like me to make way and allow a new crop of leaders to step forward and unleash their energies and creativity," Golding said in an address to the nation on October 2 when he officially announced his plans to resign as prime minister.
Even last Saturday, in his final address to the nation, Golding made no mention of the West Kingston seat he has held since a by-election in 2005 when he was elected to replace another former prime minister, Edward Seaga.
Golding's future in question
JLP officials have also been tight-lipped about Golding's future in representational politics and at a media briefing last week, the party's general secretary, Aundré Franklin, made it clear that there was no vacancy in the constituency.
Franklin told journalists that no one had applied to represent the party in the constituency since Golding remained the standard-bearer.
Yesterday, efforts to contact Franklin were unsuccessful and other senior members of the party refused to comment.
But Gleaner sources inside the party were adamant that McKenzie, the veteran councillor whose association with West Kingston dates back to decades, has been selected to replace Golding.
"Desmond get the nod even though some people don't want him," one JLP insider said.
According to the insiders, attorney-at-law Tom Tavares-Finson, who had expressed an interest in the seat, has been convinced to give way to McKenzie who is the party's deputy leader in charge of Area One.
Tavares-Finson's interest
Early after Golding announced that he was giving up the posts of JLP leader and prime minister, Tavares-Finson had confirmed to The Gleaner that he has long had an interest in representing West Kingston, which the JLP has not lost since Seaga's victory in the 1962 general election.
"I have been involved in West Kingston since 1979 in every aspect of the community," declared Tavares-Finson.
"I worked with Mr (Edward) Seaga there and it is no secret that I was one of those who helped to swing it that Mr Golding became the member of parliament there," added the attorney, who now serves as a JLP senator and one of the party's representatives on the Electoral Commission of Jamaica.
"I feel it's a duty that I have to put myself forward when a vacancy becomes available. I think the idea of being there for the people of West Kingston is a good one," asserted the nephew of Clem Tavares-Finson, a former deputy leader of the JLP.
But with McKenzie emerging as the JLP's standard-bearer, Tavares-Finson will have to put his ambitions on hold, at least for now.
Comment