Their ramshackle campaign headquarters has no computer, no fax machine, and no typewriter.

The telephones don’t work.

The pitiful lack of resources would appear to bode poorly for Jamaica’s largest Rastafarian political party, which is fielding seven candidates for the October 16 general elections.

But don’t tell that to some of the dreadlocked candidates who could be found, one recent afternoon, at the Church of Haile Selassie in a grimy section of West Kingston.

“What we have is moral persuasion,” said Junior Anderson, 54, a candidate for Kingston Central. He’s the first vice-president of the Imperial Ethiopian World Federation Incorporated Political Party IEWFIPP – the largest Rastafarian party to ever challenge Jamaica’s two main parties.

“We don’t offer the bread and butter politics,” Anderson added.

Neither Anderson nor five fellow Rastafarians displayed a hint of defeatism, despite widely published opinion polls giving the People’s National Party (PNP) and opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) the overwhelming number of votes.

The men sat in profoundly meditative moods in a small, poorly lighted room, furnished with an old couch, refrigerator, and small kitchen table piled with cans of sardines.

The walls were decorated with Rastafarian symbols and figures, including a majestic lion and photo of late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, whom many Rastafarians consider divine, including those at the Church of Haile Selassie.

“We have gotten a tremendous response,” said Leroy Lindsay, 41, a candidate in Western St Andrew, referring to recent campaign swings, during which campaign literature was passed out.

The campaigning Rastafarians said they have not encountered any violent incidents, such as stone throwing and shootings, which have marred the campaigns of the two main parties.

“Everybody loves the campaign,” Lindsay said. “We represent the grass-roots people.”

Even so, it’s hard to see how the Rastafarians can have much room for optimism for winning a seat in parliament or appointment to the senate.

“They don’t have a chance,” said Clinton Hutton, a lecturer in government at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies.

But don’t write them off for their lack of political savvy or resources, he said.

Over the past 50 years, Hutton explained, Jamaica’s trend-setting Rastafarians have been at the forefront of social change. They’ve helped give Jamaica a positive identity, rising above its slave-driven past, and they’ve traditionally called for more social justice.

“They should be taken seriously, given the fact that Jamaica is in a political crisis,” he said. Rastafarians, he added, “are deeply against political tribalism”.

Their effort to change the political system “from the inside out”, he said, underscores the progress Rastafarians have made in gaining social acceptance among Jamaicans.

According to Amanuel Foxe, 65, a high-ranking Rastafarian leader, called an abuna, the campaign is “not just about getting a seat in parliament. It’s about establishing the Rastafarian position”.

Foxe, a Jamaican who lives in Queens, New York, is visiting Kingston for the elections. He works as a chaplain in New York’s prison system, serving Rastafarian prisoners.

“We are calling on those people who love justice and hate aggression,” Foxe said.

Among other things, the Rastafarians’ political manifesto calls for a variety of social programmes to benefit Rastafarians and low-income “grass-roots” Jamaicans: low-cost housing, affordable medical care, and better education.

It also seeks to better the lot of Rastafarians by enacting laws to end discrimination against them and by securing local and overseas markets for Rastafarian artwork and crafts.

It also wants Rastafarians ordained as justices of the peace.

“We will be in each polling division on October 16 monitoring the election,” said Dilpi Champagnie, a Rastafarian priest and candidate for North-Western St Andrew.

Candidates also are running in North-East St Andrew; West Rural St Andrew; North Central Clarendon; and South-East St Catherine.