GRANGE HILL, Westmoreland – Former executive director of the Securities Commission Earl Melhado was on Sunday elected to represent the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in Western Westmoreland in the next general election.

Melhado, 55, an attorney and part-time lecturer at the University of the West Indies, won with 150 votes to 81 for councillor for the Friendship Division in Western Westmoreland Hopeton Tulsie.

Melhado, a former crown counsel at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), could not be reached last night, but Tulsie told the Observer that he was willing to work with him to wrest the seat from the ruling People’s National Party (PNP).

Junior tourism minister Wykeham McNeill is the sitting member of parliament for the constituency.

Melhado, who headed the Securities Commission from 1997 to 2001, told the Observer last month said that he was qualified academically and had the skills required to identify the needs of the communities and put in place programmes to move the communities forward.

Sections of the resort town of Negril and the sugar-cane belt areas of Grange Hill, Little London and Friendship are part of the constituency.

Melhado replaces Patrick Atkinson, who unsuccessfully contested the seat for the JLP in the 2002 general elections.

His selection brings to 12, the number of JLP candidates who are in place to contest the next general elections in the party’s Area Council Four, which covers the parishes of Trelawny, Westmoreland, St James, Hanover and St Elizabeth.

Dr Horace Chang, the party’s deputy leader in charge of Area Council Four, told the Observer last night that there are three existing vacancies in the region.

Among them is the South Trelawny constituency, which is currently represented by Devon McDaniel, who recently announced that he would not be seeking re-election whenever the next general elections are called.

The other two vacancies, Chang said, are South St James, which is presently represented by junior security minister Derrick Kellier, and in Central Westmoreland, represented by Dr Karl Blythe.

The JLP deputy leader added, however, that former JLP Member of Parliament for Central Westmoreland Russell Hammond has indicated a willingness to represent the party in that seat.

Hammond was the JLP’s member of parliament in the constituency from 1983 to 1989.

– cummingsm@jamaicaobserver.com