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Jamaica's opposition party leader to visit Rockland and Westchester in preparation for island's elections
By SUZAN CLARKE
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: May 8, 2007)
SPRING VALLEY - The opposition party leader of Jamaica - and the island's possible future prime minister - will visit Rockland and Westchester during a tour of Jamaican expatriate communities in the New York metro area.
Bruce Golding, a member of Parliament and leader of the Jamaica Labor Party, will conduct town hall meetings and walking tours this week in Jamaican enclaves that include Long Island and Brooklyn communities.
His stops also will bring him to Tappan, Spring Valley, Mount Vernon and New Rochelle.
Two town hall-style meetings - one in Rockland tomorrow and another in Westchester on Thursday - will give the public a chance to hear Golding speak and ask him questions. Golding's week in New York is organized by the Committee for a Better Jamaica in collaboration with Generation 2000 Inc., also known as G2K - a nonprofit U.S.-based arm of the Jamaica Labor Party's young professional supporters group in Jamaica.
The aim of the tour is to allow Golding to share the opposition party's vision for governing Jamaica, Patrick Maitland, chairman of G2K, said yesterday.
"At the moment the country is going through a very rough time," he said. "The level of crime and violence is unacceptably high. The economy is at its (lowest) level. ... The unemployment level seems to be rising. And so he's really here to present some suggestions as to the way forward."
National elections are expected to be held by October. A win by the JLP this year would break 18 years of the ruling People's National Party, said Winsome Downie-Rainford, a professor of government at Manhattan College and member of the Jamaican Civic and Cultural Association of Rockland.
JAMCCAR is co-hosting tomorrow night's town hall meeting at the Louis Kurtz Civic Center in Spring Valley.
Jamaicans in the U.S., "have extended family members who are still living in Jamaica," said Downie-Rainford, a former Montebello village trustee who was born in Jamaica. "Significant numbers of them travel back and forth on a regular basis to visit family and friends or just to get out of the cold."
There has been discussion about allowing Jamaicans in the U.S. to cast votes here for candidates in the island's elections.
"It's a community that the Jamaican government and Jamaican political leaders in general, I think, are very concerned about maintaining close ties with," Downie-Rainford said.
Golding, who was expected to arrive in the U.S. yesterday, also will meet with investors during his week's stay in the New York area. He is expected to travel to Washington on Friday.
Reach Suzan Clarke at snclarke@lohud.com or 845-578-2414.
By SUZAN CLARKE
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: May 8, 2007)
SPRING VALLEY - The opposition party leader of Jamaica - and the island's possible future prime minister - will visit Rockland and Westchester during a tour of Jamaican expatriate communities in the New York metro area.
Bruce Golding, a member of Parliament and leader of the Jamaica Labor Party, will conduct town hall meetings and walking tours this week in Jamaican enclaves that include Long Island and Brooklyn communities.
His stops also will bring him to Tappan, Spring Valley, Mount Vernon and New Rochelle.
Two town hall-style meetings - one in Rockland tomorrow and another in Westchester on Thursday - will give the public a chance to hear Golding speak and ask him questions. Golding's week in New York is organized by the Committee for a Better Jamaica in collaboration with Generation 2000 Inc., also known as G2K - a nonprofit U.S.-based arm of the Jamaica Labor Party's young professional supporters group in Jamaica.
The aim of the tour is to allow Golding to share the opposition party's vision for governing Jamaica, Patrick Maitland, chairman of G2K, said yesterday.
"At the moment the country is going through a very rough time," he said. "The level of crime and violence is unacceptably high. The economy is at its (lowest) level. ... The unemployment level seems to be rising. And so he's really here to present some suggestions as to the way forward."
National elections are expected to be held by October. A win by the JLP this year would break 18 years of the ruling People's National Party, said Winsome Downie-Rainford, a professor of government at Manhattan College and member of the Jamaican Civic and Cultural Association of Rockland.
JAMCCAR is co-hosting tomorrow night's town hall meeting at the Louis Kurtz Civic Center in Spring Valley.
Jamaicans in the U.S., "have extended family members who are still living in Jamaica," said Downie-Rainford, a former Montebello village trustee who was born in Jamaica. "Significant numbers of them travel back and forth on a regular basis to visit family and friends or just to get out of the cold."
There has been discussion about allowing Jamaicans in the U.S. to cast votes here for candidates in the island's elections.
"It's a community that the Jamaican government and Jamaican political leaders in general, I think, are very concerned about maintaining close ties with," Downie-Rainford said.
Golding, who was expected to arrive in the U.S. yesterday, also will meet with investors during his week's stay in the New York area. He is expected to travel to Washington on Friday.
Reach Suzan Clarke at snclarke@lohud.com or 845-578-2414.
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