With the election of Portia Simpson Miller as president-elect of the People’s National Party (PNP), a vice-presidential vacancy will exist at the end of this month when she replaces P J Patterson. But while the practice in the ruling party has been to elect officers at its annual conference in September, one PNP official has suggested that the party does not necessarily have to wait until that time.

“We do not have to wait until September to elect a new vice-president,” Colin Campbell, one of the party’s deputy general-secretaries, told the Sunday Observer last week.

“That is not to say there will be an election before annual conference in September. But those are issues that will be dealt with by the party shortly,” Campbell said.

On February 25, Simpson Miller defeated two Cabinet colleagues – Peter Phillips and Omar Davies – and a party vice-president, Karl Blythe, to become the first female president of the PNP in its 68-year history.

At the September 2004 conference, former Region Three chairman Paul Burke threw the party’s secretariat into a tailspin when he accepted an on-the-floor nomination to become a vice-president.

Unprepared for voting, the PNP convened a special delegates conference in January 2005 for the voting.

Burke was unsuccessful in his quest to oust one of four incumbents – Simpson Miller, Peter Phillips, Paul Robertson, and Karl Blythe.

In that contest, Blythe came out the surprising winner with Simpson Miller second, Phillips third and Robertson fourth.

Burke then signalled his intention to run for the presidency of the party but not to become prime minister. Last year, however, he opted out of the presidential race, but told his supporters that he may run again in 2007 as a vice-president.

Contacted last week, he said, “I have given that no thought”.

Burke is being touted as the architect of Simpson Miller’s victory, and already there is speculation that he will run for the position of general-secretary. Burke, however, would offer no comment on that.