Mandeville, Manchester – Internal People’s National Party (PNP) delegate polls set for yesterday and today in South East St Elizabeth and South Manchester to choose candidates for the next general election have been postponed yet again.

In South Manchester, where incumbent MP and House Speaker Michael Peart is being challenged by educator Michael Skeffery, the date has been pushed back from today to June 4 at the Porus High School.

In South East St Elizabeth where former MP Derrick Rochester is seeking to replace his successor Len Blake, the new date is June 10 at the Lititz school – pushed back from yesterday.

The selection wranglings, which extend beyond St Elizabeth, has thrown the party into turmoil, forcing the appointment of a senior party official to bring order to the process and stave off future trouble.

Members of its high council will meet in Westmoreland today to plan strategies for the June 7 by-election in that parish, and to restore order to the selection of candidates for both national and municipal elections.

Dr Paul Robertson has been named chair of an oversight committee to examine the selection process, and to adjudicate on matters relating to the pre and post selection procedures.

Outgoing general secretary Burchell Whiteman said Robertson, who is a former PNP general secretary, current vice president, and National Executive Council member, was chosen because of his expertise in such matters.

The imbroglio in South Manchester could turn out to be fairly straightforward, but there seems certain to be more problems ahead for the party organisation in South East St Elizabeth.

Rochester continues to insist that he will only take part in the formal delegate selection if the venue is changed from Lititz to some other location, preferably Junction.

Robertson told the Sunday Observer yesterday that after “checking through all the issues raised” a decision was taken to postpone yesterday’s scheduled selection and “set a new date (June 10) at the same venue (Lititz School).”

Regarding South Manchester, Robertson said that questions relating to the delegates list in that constituency had been cleared up and the internal poll “is now cleared to go forward”.

The delegate polls in the two constituencies had been previously postponed from May 19.

In St Elizabeth, Rochester, who has been arguing that Lititz was Blake’s “backyard” and would not provide “a level playing field” for a selection process, was still adamant yesterday that he would not be part of any selection process there.

“If it is at Lititz, I will not take part,” the 66-year-old Rochester, who served the PNP as MP for SE St Elizabeth 1972-1980 and again between 1989 and 2002, told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

Rochester, a parliamentary secretary and junior minister in PNP administrations of the 1970s and 90s and former island supervisor and president of the National Workers Union (NWU), claimed that Junction was the natural centre of South East St Elizabeth and the poll would be more logical there.

Blake said his opponent was simply seeking an excuse. “He can’t win and he knows it,” said 53-year-old Blake. “I am ready and the constituency executive is ready for a poll anytime, anywhere.”

But Rochester, who says he is primarily motivated by a desire to keep SE St Elizabeth for the PNP and to strengthen the mandate of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in the parliamentary election due by next year, stressed that regardless of the result of the June 10 poll, he will persist with his challenge, using the party’s “internal mechanisms”.

Robertson, who has been a senior Cabinet minister in administrations led by the late Michael Manley and P J Patterson, who gave way to Simpson Miller in February, left open the possibility that the choice of the delegates could be overturned, especially where a person “is narrowly selected”.

The PNP constitution, he said, allowed the party president (Simpson Miller) to manage the process in collaboration with the NEC and to make appropriate recommendations.

Robertson also emphasised that his Monitoring Committee includes people “of the highest standing” who were “broad-based and balanced” and had taken “considered” decisions in the best interest of the party. Among the questions his committee had considered in relation to South East St Elizabeth was the voters list, which was found to be “completely acceptable”, he said.

Today’s PNP NEC meeting was initially scheduled for Kingston, but will now be held at the Culloden Vocational Training Centre in east Westmoreland.

Deputy general secretary Colin Campbell said the choice of venue was logical.

“It should be obvious why we are going there. We have an election to run there and instead of asking persons to come to Kingston and then have a strategy meeting, we decided to focus our activities there,” he said.

“It makes sense.”

The by-election will elect a representative to replace former prime minister PJ Patterson.

The PNP’s Luther Buchanan, and the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Don Foote, along with independent candidate Ras Astor Black are vying for the seat.

The PNP will also see a changing of the guard in its secretariat with the election of a new general secretary to replace Whiteman, who occupied the position for the last two-and-a-half years.

Campbell is expected to be ushered into the new position.

On Friday, he told the Sunday Observer that as far as he was aware, he was the only candidate, but said his election was not a done deal.

“Someone could be nominated from the floor, and nothing is wrong with that,” he said.