DARLISTON, Westmoreland – People’s National Party (PNP) president Portia Simpson Miller says the party’s victory in the Eastern Westmoreland by-election on Wednesday will not determine her timetable for the calling of any election.

“This (the victory) will not determine my going for any elections; this will determine the level of political work that I will instruct the new member of parliament to carry out on the ground, as he moves among the people,” Simpson Miller said. “My instruction to him will be to stay with the people and make representation on their behalf, particularly those who are poor and the oppressed,” she added.

Simpson Miller was speaking to reporters here, shortly after the party’s Luther Buchanan was declared winner of the Eastern Westmoreland seat, left vacant by former party president P J Patterson.

In the by-election on Wednesday, Buchanan polled 6,400 votes, while Don Foote, representing the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) secured 3,400 of the ballots cast.

Ras Astor Black of the Jamaica Alliance Movement (JAM) got 44 votes, while 37 ballots were spoilt.

The votes cast represented 46.4 per cent of the more than 21,800 electors on the list.

Since Simpson Miller’s ascension to the position of party leader in March, there have been speculations that she would go to the polls early, in a bid to obtain a fresh mandate to lead the country.

The by-election in the constituency, political analysis argued, was supposed to be a litmus test.

But Simpson Miller insisted Wednesday night that although the victory was good for the party and a “good signal and something that the party can now go to the drawing board with, as the party prepare for whatever”, it was no indication of the party going for an election.

“Portia will go for an election when I feel that the time is right for me to go for my own mandate, and I think the country is expecting me to go for my own mandate at the appropriate time,” she said.

She later told jubilant party supporters in Darliston Square, just outside Buchanan’s campaign office, that she was aware that there have been calls for her to call a general election but said it would be called at an “appropriate” time.

“While I was coming down here tonight (Wednesday), I heard the people shouting ‘Mama or Sister P we want the big thing (general election) now; we want the big one now’; but at the appropriate time you will hear from us in the leadership of the People’s National Party,” she said.

– cummingsm@jamaicaobserver.com