McGregor says taking political leap in Kgn Central a ‘no-brainer’
Published:Sunday | August 24, 2025 | 12:05 AMLivern Barrett - Senior Staff Reporter
It was an easy decision for retired senior cop Steve McGregor when the leadership of the main opposition People’s National Party (PNP) approached him to represent the constituency of Kingston Central.
The constituency includes several tough inner-city communities in the heart of the Jamaican capital, where McGregor spent most of his childhood.
The former senior superintendent of police was just into retirement when PNP Region Three Chairman Dennis Gordon – his “friend and brother” and domino partner – renewed his efforts to convince him to join the party.
“When I was approached by the hierarchy of the People’s National Party and told that they would want me to represent that same community that I hail from, it was a no-brainer,” he said.
“It was not a difficult sell. I know that I have a connection with this constituency, … so it wasn’t difficult for me to make that decision.”
That connection started when McGregor’s family relocated from Moore Town, Portland, to the east Kingston community of Dunkirk, now known as McIntyre Villa, when he was six years old.
Two years later, his family was on the move again, this time to the nearby community of Franklin Town, which forms part of the Kingston Central constituency.
“I lived at 34 Cambridge Street,” he recounted.
A past student of Franklin Town Primary School and Kingston College, he also recounted, as a child, walking the streets of his community barefoot and playing football in the streets.
McGregor retired from the police force at the rank of senior superintendent in January last year, ending a career that spanned 41 years and included several leadership roles in critical police divisions.
But it was his time between east and central Kingston that gave him a front-row seat to the poverty, underdevelopment and despair that is prevalent in some of Jamaica’s inner-city communities.
“It’s lower [and] middle income right across [the constituency]. We don’t have any high-level income earners here,” McGregor told The Sunday Gleaner.
That’s something he wants to change if elected as the parliamentary representative for the constituency. He was officially nominated last Monday.
“I believe that if you are going to go into representational politics, you must have a connection [with the area you seek to represent]. It can happen, but I don’t believe in a brand-new person who doesn’t have a relationship with the constituency [seeking to represent it],” McGregor suggested.
Confirmation that he has a chance to become the parliamentary representative for the constituency that takes in his childhood neighbourhood brought his mother Linnette Fuller to tears.
“She said, ‘Steve, this is the area that you grow up in and you have grown up to become a man who can carry on the job that Michael Manley did’, and she said go for it,” McGregor said, recounting a recent telephone call between them.
To help turn around the economic fortunes of residents across the constituency, he is banking on a project he has conceptualised to transform the Rae Town Fishing Village into a major stopover hub.
The fishing village is located along Michael Manley Boulevard that leads to the Norman Manley International Airport as well as the eastern end of the island.
Other priority projects include housing and infrastructural development; a homework centre for students; creating a network of youth clubs mainly for at-risk young people and implementing measures to enhance the diverse businesses operated by residents, McGregor disclosed.
MAIN PROJECT
For the main project to “repurpose” the Rae Town Fishing Village, the aspiring parliamentary representative said he already has three “major” developers and one “major musical icon who is ready to partner with me”.
“It will have mainly fishing-related activities there, but it will also have a gas station and all the necessary amenities to make it into a [commercial hub] down there, “ he explained.
“So as we take office, we are going to review the specs [specifications] and see how we can do that to bring back the nightlife to Rae Town.”
McGregor insisted, too, that empowering residents to become self-sufficient by starting and regularising their businesses and establishing the homework centre are two of the initiatives they can hold him to from the outset if he is elected member of parliament.
“Those are the two low-hanging fruits that we are going to start as the gate says go. Those are two that they can hold me to,” he said.
McGregor is seeking to wrest the constituency from the Jamaica Labour Party’s Donovan Williams in the upcoming general election set for September 3.
Williams pulled off a surprise victory in the September 2020 general election in the constituency that has been dominated by the PNP. He polled 4,568 to defeat the PNP’s Imani Duncan Price (4,265) with a 41 per cent voter turnout.
Before Williams, the seat was held by the PNP’s Ronald Thwaites (2007, 2011, 2016), Victor Cummings (2002), and Thwaites (1997).
In 1993, the PNP’s Lester Lloyd (9,016) had defeated the JLP’s Olivia Grange (6,641) to retain the party’s hold on the seat after it was won by Ralph Brown in 1989.
Despite reaching out to him several times over the past few months, the JLP’s Donovan Williams has not made time to speak to The Sunday Gleaner about his plans for the constituency and his record over the last term.