A substantial block of the JLP’s Central Executive is expected to gather in Montego Bay today in an act of defiance against Edward Seaga, whose troubled leadership appeared last night to be heading into new turbulence only months after he seemed to have quietened the dissidents.

It also emerged yesterday that Bruce Golding, the front-runner for the post-Seaga leadership of the JLP, is all but committed to challenging his former mentor for the Jamaica Labour Party’s top post at the party’s annual conference in November, unless Seaga decides to step down before then.

The main agenda of the formal meeting – if it had taken place – would have been the Dennis Minott affair, but it was called off on Seaga’s instruction on Friday. However, anti-Seaga activists were still mobilising delegates to turn up at the Chatwick Gardens Hotel, even if the discussions, in the end, do not have the formal imprimatur of the JLP.

“Of the 163 members of the Central Executive I expect between 80 and 100 to turn up,” according to one source, who asked not to be identified.

However, JLP General-Secretary Karl Samuda stressed that no decision taken in Montego Bay would be binding on the JLP.

“They would have no authority to discuss anything that was on the agenda of the formal meeting of the Central Executive,” Samuda said. “This is not a formal meeting of the JLP or any arm of the JLP.”

Dr Horace Chang, the JLP’s deputy leader in charge of western Jamaica, concurred. “Well, the issues can’t be dealt with outside of a formal meeting,” he said.

But Chang said that in the face of the “last-minute” cancellation of the meeting some delegates had already arrived in Montego Bay.

“Depending on how many of them come we will talk to them and tell them what’s happening,” he said.

Among those who will be in Montego Bay is Golding, who had a speaking engagement in Westmoreland last night and then spent the night in the second city.

As the new controversy swirled around the JLP last night, pro-Seaga sources were suggesting that the leader’s departure before November could well be a probability, and that Seaga may be attempting to fashion a mechanism for the transition.

“Don’t be surprised if Mr Seaga was to make a major announcement within a short time affecting the leadership of the party,” a senior JLP source told the Sunday Observer.

But Seaga’s opponents interpreted such statements as a smoke-screen.

“It is likely to be a ruse to lull a hold-off of a challenge to his leadership,” according to one source who has agitated for Seaga to give up the leadership of the JLP.

“If you fall for it and he doesn’t step aside, you’ll be in November and it is too late to mount an affective campaign,” said the source. “Then he is there for another year.”

Golding himself declined last night to be clear on his intention on the leadership race, although both his supporters and detractors in the JLP insisted that he had made up his mind to challenge Seaga and was preparing to make the announcement in a matter of weeks.

“If I say yes it makes the headline, and if a say no it makes the headline,” Golding remarked. “It is better if I defer the question.”

Golding has, up to now, sought to portray himself as a sort of bridge between the party’s old guard and the younger, more aggressive generation eager for change and a return of the JLP to government after its long stint in opposition.

But, said a source with strong Seaga leanings: “We know that he has established a series of working committees to manage a campaign, and unless he changes his mind, he will possibly make an announcement in July.

“Mr Golding has already given a commitment to his backers (in the JLP) that he will challenge. They are pressing him to go through with it or they will withdraw their support.”

Seaga, 74, has led the JLP for 30 years and has, in the past, easily beaten back challengers in his notoriously fractious party.

Last November, Seaga loyalists mostly lost against members of the so-called reformist wing of the party – nominally led by Golding – in a series of internal elections. Golding was once Seaga’s anointed heir but walked out of the JLP for seven years to form the National Democratic Movement during a split in the JLP over leadership and direction. He returned in triumph in time for the 2002 general election and was credited for a revival in the JLP’s fortunes that brought it close to victory.

He soon became the central figure around whom the reformers revolved, leading the removal of several Seaga-backers from top positions in the party.

The reversal appeared to have severely weakened Seaga, under whose leadership the JLP has been in Opposition for 15 years, triggering demands that he step down. However, in February, Seaga won a vote of confidence from the JLP’s parliamentary group, which appeared to have given him breathing space, at least until the annual conference in November.

But new turmoil erupted in the JLP within the past month when it emerged that Minott, the party’s caretaker/candidate for Eastern Portland, had asked the political ombudsman to investigate allegations of vote-buying during elections for one of the deputy leader slots last November.

In the contest for the post to be in-charge of the JLP’s eastern district, James Robertson, who had rejected Seaga’s urging not to mount the challenge, beat Seaga loyalist Olivia “Babsy” Grange. But Minott claimed that people in Robertson’s camp had bribed delegates, and said that he had taken the case to Bishop Herro Blair, the political ombudsman, because the party was slow to respond to his complaints.

The JLP said that Minott’s complaint came at a time when officers were in transition, and he was accused of “bringing the party into disrepute” by going outside with an issue that could hurt the organisation. Blair last week ruled that he had no legal authority to probe the allegation.

The JLP’s Standing Committee had put the matter to the Central Executive – the highest decision-making body outside the annual conference – which was to have dealt with it at its quarterly meeting today.

But on Friday, the party announced that the meeting was postponed, without giving a reason. A Seaga aide later said that many of the delegates had not been informed – a claim rejected by Seaga’s opponents who saw it as a move to short-circuit debate that might ignite calls for a timetable for his departure.

But despite the formal postponement, the anti-Seaga elements hope that a large turn-out in Montego Bay would send a signal of the mood of the party.

“What we are doing is showing him (Seaga) that the party is no longer to use as he sees fit – to call on or call off as he desires,” said one those mobilising for a big turn-out.