Reinvigorated by the hype and energy of their just concluded 67th annual conference, candidates for the top leadership post in the ruling People’s National Party (PNP) have turned their attention to the final stretch of the leadership race, which ends in the next four months or so at a special delegates conference to be announced by departing president and prime minister P J Patterson.

All the teams surveyed expressed confidence coming out of the conference, with some appearing more upbeat than others but with every side claiming a good chance of emerging the winner.

“In terms of visible and tangible support we came out better than we had gone in,” was how Maxine Henry-Wilson, the education minister and campaign manager for Dr Peter Phillips put it.

Judging by the sea of “Solid as a Rock” T-shirts worn by Phillips supporters inside the arena at last month’s conference, there may indeed be a basis for her optimism, even if the registration of groups and consequently delegates is only around 50 per cent complete.

About 5,000 delegates are expected to decide on who succeeds Patterson.

The campaign for Phillips, the early front-runner, had widely been perceived as losing steam in the months leading up to the conference, mainly due to unfavourable fallout from the record high murder rate, given Phillips’ position as security minister.

But the Phillips camp seemed to have gone to ground and done their homework in terms of solidifying their delegate base, resulting in the massive show of support.

Phillips has already laid claim to the party’s centre, stating that the traditional base of the party has endorsed his candidacy, including a majority of the Members of Parliament (MPs) whose opinions have a strong influence on the positions delegates ultimately take.

A coy Henry-Wilson declined to say how many delegates her campaign team was targeting but noted the “need to ensure we have support over all comers”. She also gave an indication of how the Phillips campaign team intended to approach what she described as the final leg of the campaign.

“We are hunkering down… We will be sharpening the image of the candidate in terms of sharper messages, but we will not necessarily be as visible,” stated Henry-Wilson.

She noted that as the holder of an admittedly “tough portfolio”, Phillips had come in for a lot of criticism over the crime issue which had detracted from his reputation as a high performer.

However, she said, many of the solutions to crime required long-term applications as they were based on deep-rooted societal issues that needed to be addressed on many fronts, including some of the “tributaries” to crime, such as “a lack of respect for authority, general indiscipline and the problems of our inner-cities”.

Noting that the security portfolio was the “one that has been changed (ministers) the most over the years”, she said there seemed to be a gradual recognition that the crime problem had no quick fixes but rather needed a sustained commitment to core areas.

Henry-Wilson said the “energy and consummate capacity” that Phillips brought to all his portfolios to date were evidence of the type of approach he would bring to the top job, adding that he would also be an excellent unifier of the party once the dust from the leadership contest had settled.

Bedevilled too by a tough portfolio, Finance Minister Dr Omar Davies is regarded by many as the fastest closing candidate, based on his high-tech, intense campaign that has served to introduce him to a wide range of potential delegates in his “Campaign for Prosperity”.

Seen by pundits as a hard sell, based on his having to preside over some tough choices as finance minister, Davies has been gaining traction in his many treks across the various regions of the party, drawing respectable crowds at the various fora organised by his team.

The team is working to counter perceptions that because he has not held many party posts he does not appeal to many inside the PNP, despite enjoying the obvious confidence and support of key sectors, including sections of the intelligentsia and major players in the financial and business sectors.

His campaign organiser, Imani Duncan, said the team was currently assessing the campaign so far and would be having a meeting today of its 600 “Prosperity Ambassadors” who represent the Davies campaign across the island, to help determine its current standing and plan the way forward.

Davies supporters put up a fair showing at the party’s annual conference if the white shirts and well-attended tent, pitched on the outskirts of the National Arena, are a fair indication of his support.

The Davies campaign team is also pushing a campaign video, perhaps the first of its kind by any aspirant for such an office, entitled Emerging from the past…Working in the present…Leading into the future, that encapsulates the life of the finance and planning minister and presents him as the man best able to find the right policy mix to realise the prosperity that is the centrepiece of his campaign.

Davies thinks the video is an effective way of reaching out to PNP delegates and the wider national community, who may only see him as the minister of finance and therefore not understanding the multifaceted persona that he is as community builder, father, musicologist, and teacher, among other things.

Already out well ahead in the popularity contest, Portia Simpson Miller, with her “Team Portia” campaign, is focusing on “consolidating, fine tuning and interfacing with party groups”, according to campaign director Easton Douglas.

“We are re-assessing our campaign in terms of what we regard as a time-frame based on the prime minister’s announcement… and to continue our programmme of campaigning, targeting party groups and delegates,” said Douglas, a former housing and environment minister. “We are not taking it (our support) for granted.”

He also noted that “Team Portia” was in the process of organising a formal campaign launch and would be stepping up its marketing and communication programmes to project its candidate in the coming weeks.

Asked to define the core theme of the campaign and the vision of Simpson Miller, Douglas noted that she had always consistently championed a “comprehensive and integrated approach to development”.

The focus is on social, human resource, economic and spatial (physical) development through a process of consultation with communities, with an emphasis on urban and rural development which will contribute to growth, development and production,” said Douglas.

He added that the campaign team was banking on the “over 30 years of experience and high level of service and commitment to the party” by Simpson Miller, who he saw as a great unifier of the party and country which was needed at this juncture in time.

He also rejected as “spurious” claims from other contenders about who controlled the centre of the party.

“She brings a level of inspiration and motivation to leadership that would be difficult to match by any other officer in the party,” said Douglas.

A passionate and charismatic personality, Simpson Miller is regarded by many as the heart of the PNP, as well as its conscience.

But notions of her perceived weaknesses intellectually and socially persist despite her effective stewardship in various super ministries.

Her supporters feel strongly that Simpson Miller’s woman’s touch and high degree of emotional intelligence are what are required to surmount Jamaica’s seemingly intractable crime problems and build social harmony.

Refusing to yield any inch of ground, Dr Karl Blythe’s campaign laid out a number of issues which informed their showing at the annual conference.

“The 21st Century Performance Team took a conscious decision not to bus delegates into Kingston. We felt that this conference rightly belonged to the party president – to hail him for his work and achievements, and so we decided not to have promotional items at conference, no tent, etc,” said a statement prepared by Yasmin Salmon-Russell, Blythe’s communications consultant.

However, she noted that the team felt “very confident” coming out of the conference, remarking that “if our supporters from Central Westmoreland had come in, no doubt they would have outnumbered the comrades we saw in other candidates’ T-shirts”.

The 21st Century Performance Team also posited that it had very good support among groups such as the MPs, but noted that care had to be exercised lest they be “victimised”.

“We do not want to expose them…just in case…We do not want for them and their constituents/councillors to be victimised,” said the statement.

Salmon-Russell’s statement also asserted that Blythe was pinning his hopes on his past record and was asking the delegates to assess him based on his performance as minister of water and housing, MP and as a vice-president and officer of the PNP.

“They must look at his concern for the welfare of the poor, they must look at his concern for the welfare of party members, they must look at his resolve to narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots, but most importantly, they must believe in him, they must believe that he is sincere. They must believe that he will deliver,” said the statement.

It also noted that the approach of the campaign was focused on direct interfacing between the candidate and delegates with “very little hype”, which had elicited a great response.

“We have CDs and DVDs out there highlighting the different sides to the candidate, but the overall theme is PERFORMANCE. What he has done and what he intends to do,” said the statement.