WESTERN BUREAU – The Jamaica Labour Party’s constituency organisation in North Trelawny will on October 10 choose either Ed Wallace or Marisa Dalrymple-Phillibert, as the party’s constituency caretaker.

They are seeking to replace Christopher Jobson, who contested the seat for the JLP in the 2002 general elections but lost to the People’s National Party’s Dr Patrick Harris.

Wallace, an educator by profession, lives in the Martha Brae area of the constituency and has worked with the National Water Commission for more than 10 years.

He, like Dalrymple-Phillibert, is a new-comer to representational politics.

Dalrymple-Phillibert is a successful attorney and hotelier who played a major role in the 2002 general election campaign for the JLP in North West St Ann. The party’s Verna Parchment defeated the PNP’s Arnold Bertram in that constituency.

The election of a caretaker for North Trelawny is one of three spots which JLP deputy leader with responsibility for Area Council Four Dr Horace Chang said would be filled before the party’s annual conference which is due in November.

Already, party delegates have selected Norman Horne to represent them in South East St Elizabeth and Christopher

Tufton as the caretaker for South West St Elizabeth.

On Thursday, Dr Chang told the Observer that more than 200 party delegates are expected to participate in next month’s selection process.

The delegates, he said, would cast their ballots at five polling stations – one in each parish council division – in the constituency.

The selection of a candidate to fill the existing vacancy was expected to be held in March. But according to Dr Chang, the delay was due mainly to a revision of the party’s selection process.

“Basically the party revised its conduct on consultation and that was not finished until May so no selection could have been completed before that time,” the deputy leader explained.

Since May, he added, the party has been focusing on the selection of candidates in the two St Elizabeth constituencies.