Disgruntled Labourites threaten to support PNP after Wilson bumped from JLP ticket
Published:Wednesday | April 16, 2025 | 12:09 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Just hours after the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) secretariat announced Dr Garfield James as the winner of Sunday’s tightly contested internal selection in Westmoreland Western, angry party workers launched a fierce backlash. They threatened to shift their support to the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) if James is confirmed as the JLP’s candidate.
On Tuesday, disgruntled members of the JLP’s constituency organisation staged a demonstration outside the Mango Hall constituency office of incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) Morland Wilson. Brandishing placards and chanting slogans, the protesters expressed outrage over Wilson’s defeat to James, the current councillor for the Sheffield Division.
“This seat is going to go independent or nothing at all [if James is the candidate]. We will all take our votes to the other side, and we have told Dr Chang this before,” said one disgruntled JLP worker, referring to Dr Horace Chang, the JLP’s general secretary. “We have [also] told the prime minister, and we are very serious about it.
“In Western Westmoreland, we don’t want Mr Garfield James. If it’s not Mr Morland Wilson, we are not voting. We are not working,” she insisted.
Wilson had secured his seat in the 2020 general election, defeating the PNP’s Dr Wykeham McNeill and contributing to the JLP’s historic sweep of all three Westmoreland constituencies for the first time since 1989.
Late Monday night, the JLP secretariat declared James the winner of the selection process.
James, the principal of Little London High, is now being recommended to the JLP’s Selection Committee and Central Executive as the party’s candidate for Western Westmoreland in the upcoming general election.
Chang expressed confidence that unity would return to the constituency, stating that the party’s candidate selection process gives workers and delegates a real voice. The process included a constituency audit, polling, consultations, and the recent selection vote.
CHANG’S SUPPORT
However, the decision has triggered questions about Chang’s support for James, who only joined the JLP in 2023 after crossing the floor from the PNP during a session of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation. He was among three councillors – the others being Ian Myles and Lawton McKenzie – who initially declared themselves independents before James and Myles officially joined the JLP in September 2023.
In the February 2024 local government elections, James and Myles won the Sheffield and Little London divisions for the JLP while the PNP retained the other three divisions in the constituency.
McKenzie, after briefly returning to the PNP, later unsuccessfully contested the Grange Hill Division as an independent.
Despite James’ success, some workers remain unconvinced.
“Mr James did not even win Sheffield, and that’s where he is responsible for,” claimed a disgruntled worker.
She believes that the party has not treated Wilson fairly, and as such, they are not prepared to work with James.
On Sunday, JLP Leader Dr Andrew Holness urged the candidates to exercise professionalism, saying that the party must remain the winner at the end of the selection process.