HOPEWELL, Hanover – People’s National Party (PNP) delegates in Eastern Hanover are to go to the polls on Sunday in what sources say is a ‘done-deal’ selection that will see D K Duncan installed, unchallenged, as chairman of the constituency.

The trip to the polls – the second in less than five months – follows a selection in May which was won by the mayor of Savanna-la-Mar, Delford Morgan, who beat former PNP candidate Lloyd Hill and ex-councillor Cleveland Wright, in a vote which saw a little over 200 of the more than 500 delegates casting their ballots.

But PNP general secretary Colin Campbell said the party had decided to hold another selection because Morgan was no longer interested in the seat.

“The constituency executive has reported that Mr Morgan is not interested,” Campbell said. “He is not campaigning so we are having another selection.”

Morgan, however, has denied losing interest in the seat. But he said he would not participate in any future selection.

“I am not going to be involved in any selection, and I will continue to be interested in being the party’s representative until I am formally advised by the party that someone else has been selected,” he said.

While acknowledging that he has not been actively campaigning in the constituency, Morgan said that he had maintained “close contact” with the area.

“My lack of presence and my lack of campaigning has to do with one thing: there is a selection process which I went through and I am simply awaiting the party’s dictates, as to who will go forward, but I am still in contact with the constituents,” he said.

Morgan added that he has decided to keep a low profile in the constituency because former PNP Cabinet minister Dr D K Duncan has been actively campaigning in the area.

.”So rather to be out there to cause any divisiveness and any friction between camps, I have tactically taken the decision to maintain contact, rather than to do day-to-day campaign,” he said.

In the meantime, Hill, who unsuccessfully contested the seat in the 2002 general elections against the Jamaica Labour Party’s Berrington Gray, agreed with Campbell that Morgan had lost interest in the constituency.

“I have not spoken with him (Morgan) personally, but from what I have been hearing is that he has formed an opinion that the party was not interested in having him as the candidate and that, combined with the activity of Comrade Duncan, has sort of caused him to figure that it does not make sense,” Hill said.

“On the other hand, Duncan has been up and around and is in touch with delegates and influential persons in the area,” he added.