THE Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), buoyed by its recent impressive showing in opinion polls, is confident that it will win at least 36 seats when the general elections are called.

“I have news for them. I am working right now, and I have identified 36 seats that the JLP is going to win. And, I am going to 41, a not satisfied with 36, because I want them to understand that after 17 years we going get rid of them and we going get rid of them for many years to come,” Karl Samuda, the party’s general secretary told Sunday night’s conference of the West Kingston constituency in Tivoli Gardens.

The JLP, in its best election showing since the 1889 general elections, won 26 of the 60 parliamentary seats in the 20002 polls. However, during the last 18 months Verna Parchment and Abe Dabdoub, who were both elected on the party’s ticket, have fallen out of grace with the JLP and have resigned.

Parchment, the MP for St Ann North Western, crossed floors and joined the ruling People’s National Party, PNP, but Dabdoub, the MP for St Catherine North East, now sits as an independent member of the legislature.

Energised from the loud cheers, Samuda said some of the candidates selected to run for the PNP were old junk, for which the party was having difficulty finding parts.

“After 17 years the People’s National Party (PNP) have to go into the junkyard, take out the used parts, bring dem back, shine dem up, and de worst about it is, that some of the parts can’t fix because it redundant,” said Samuda, to much laughter and shouts of “shower” from the crowd.

He added that some of the “parts” did not even come from the same “vehicle”, and that was the reason the PNP was having a difficult time with its candidate’s selection.

Samuda, in the meantime, urged the PNP to put up a clean election campaign.

“We at the JLP are going to conduct a positive campaign. Our campaign is not going to be a filthy, dirty campaign, that stoops to all kinds of strategies that we have seen the PNP engage in. We are going to speak about the issues, we are going to speak about the things that we are going to bring to Jamaica.

“But make no mistake about it, and I make it clear to the PNP tonight, if they form fool and go down in the gutter, they will regret it because we have some things that can bite them hotter than them can believe,” Samuda warned.

At the same time, Audley Shaw, the party’s spokesman on finance and a deputy leader for Area Council 3, said his area could would deliver 14 of the 36 seats to the party when the general elections are called.

Shaw, in a bold promise to the large crowd, said: “In the last election we got seven out of 14 seats, but what a see out there now, everywhere we go, in Manchester its going to be 4-0; in Clarendon its going to be 6-0; and in St Ann, all de lady name Assamba, she gone too, 4-0 in St Ann, making 14 out of 14.”

Shaw said the sentiments for change in the country was so strong that he could see, feel and taste the victory.

Shaw said it did not matter when the elections were called, the PNP would be gone as the Jamaican people had made a decision that it was time for a change.