During the last administration, the People’s National Party (PNP) spent billions of dollars on infrastructural projects in St James, accomplishments they used every opportunity to point to during the election campaign.

There was the North Coast Highway that cut travel time between Montego Bay and Negril to under an hour; the South Gully Drainage Improvement Project that eased the problem of flooding; and the stately Montego Bay Civic Centre nestled in Sam Sharpe Square where cultural and civic events can now be staged.

These projects were all supposed to be among the solid achievements that would help the PNP win votes in St James. And there were promises of more to come in the fourth term – a convention centre that would help the city tap into the lucrative incentives market; the MoBay bypass that would ease traffic congestion; and the dualisation of the Howard Cooke Boulevard, already in progress.

But last Wednesday, voters said no to three of the four PNP candidates in St James – Gordon Brown, Hugh Solomon and Donald Colomathi.

Days after Wednesday’s elections, Montegonians were still talking about the trouncing that the PNP received in North-West, West-Central and East-Central St James.

“Me caan believe after all wha (PNP president) P J (Patterson) do fi St James, dem tun Labourite,” lamented a newspaper vendor with strong PNP leanings. “Me nuh know wha cause it. St James people dem tun Labourite, and me nuh know why.”

But for Montego Bay businessman Mark-Kerr Jarrett, the answer was clear. Infrastructure, he said, was important, but effective representation was equally as important and it was an area that the PNP had neglected.

Former tourism minister and member of parliament for North-West St James, Francis Tulloch, resigned due to ill health almost two years ago, and after a messy attempt to name Senator Janet Madden as his successor as constituency chairman, the riding was effectively left without a leader. The constituency encompasses the city’s business hub, and leaving it rudderless for so long has been described as one of the PNP’s fatal errors.

In East-Central St James, MP Violet Neilson was not as visible as she could have been, partly due to illness and her duties as Speaker of the House. And MP for West-Central St James,

Arthur Nelson appeared to fade into the background long before he announced that he would not run again.

“I do not think that the people of St James believe that they have been sufficiently well represented at the national level,” Kerr-Jarrett said. “Yes, we have had significant investment in new projects with regards to infrastructure, but we have not had the reinvestment of our revenue with regards to the day-to-day maintenance of our infrastructure – roads, gullies, drains, city and parish sanitation, and solid waste.”

Because of a lack of maintenance, the new projects, he said, would only compound the problem as they would just “deteriorate and add to the city’s inventory of decay”.

Robert Russell, a former member of the National Democratic Movement who joined Bruce Golding when he returned to the JLP in the election campaign’s last lap, agreed that Montego Bay had been badly neglected. He also agreed that the neglect was a spin-off from the fact that there was no one batting for the tourist resort city at the national level.

“I think that the leadership in St James has been suffering and we have not had a real outstanding leader for the west in the last few years,” he said. “I think Francis Tulloch was probably the most visible figure we had for the PNP in Montego Bay and since he stepped down I haven’t really seen a leader emerge from the PNP camp to command that kind of respect and control of Montego Bay. And wherever the city of Montego Bay goes, the environs follow suit.”

One PNP insider who did not wish to be named contended that the party’s abysmal showing in St James could be blamed on a combination of factors including:

. poor organisational work by Region Six chairman and South St James MP Derrick Kellier;

. poor candidate selection, the blame for which he laid at the feet of party vice-president and MP for Central Westmoreland Karl Blythe, who had oversight responsibility for the process; and

. the gap left after Tulloch exited and the baggage that Hugh Solomon brought to the race as a result of the street people scandal that offended the sensibilities of the majority of the middle-class voters.

“Kellier allowed the organisational structure to collapse under him, he did not strengthen the structure and, therefore, must take some responsibility; and Blythe has to take some of the blame for presiding over a flawed selection process,” the party insider said.

“The PNP must go back to the drawing board and rebuild from the grassroots up and those who are responsible for the demise ought not to be rewarded. They should not be given ministerial positions, but should be sent into the field to rebuild the party,” the source added.

With local government elections on the horizon, the PNP has to figure out what went wrong in the national polls and how to fix the problem and ensure that they do not lose their strong grip on the St James Parish Council.

But it might be too late. The PNP-dominated council is already receiving a failing grade.

“The trend is towards better representation and I think at the local level, government has been weak in its representation,” Kerr-Jarrett said.

According to the businessman, Montegonians have matured enough to move away from voting strictly along party lines, and performance counts.

“The trend that has become apparent in this election is that the candidate, and the quality of the candidate, took priority over party affiliation,” he said.

His assessment was similar to that of one PNP insider who argued that the PNP now has to weed out the current batch of councillors in the St James Parish Council and get fresh, new faces.

“The PNP must seriously start to build tomorrow morning. They must purge the region and it must be seen, in public places, that they disassociate themselves from the current crop of councillors in the St James Parish Council,” the source said. “Get a new crop. If you want to show respect for the people of St James you have to get councillors who have the credibility, who can represent people, who have the track record of service and get rid of those little contractors hiding behind council seats. Grassroots people contribute too. That little Parish Council posse who sit there every day, they must send them home. If PNP will not send them home, then Labourite will send them home.”

Completed projects bill

. North Coast Highway Negril to Montego Bay leg – almost $7.2B

. Montego Bay Civic Centre – $155M

. South Gully project – $658M

. Montego Bay Sewerage Treatment Plant – $1.2B

Projected cost of ongoing project

. Dualisation of the Howard Cooke Boulevard – $1.16B

Projected cost of promised projects

. Montego Bay bypass – $1.4B

. Montego Bay convention centre – $1.4B