THE Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) 63rd annual conference begins today at the National Arena in Kingston, with opinion polls putting the party in the best position to win its first competitive general elections in 26 years.

Party leader Bruce Golding has been selling the JLP as the hope for Jamaica, telling supporters that the party was the best chance for social and economic renewal, with crime reduction and job creation as major priorities.

Golding, the Opposition leader, said he has been leading from in front with visits to 22 of 25 constituencies targetted, in two-and-a-half months. He has also visited more than 500 communities in less than six months. Golding told his West Kingston constituents last Sunday that underdevelopment and decay were killing the country, and that there was an urgent need to stem the flow of despondency.

At the same time, party spokesman on finance Audley Shaw has promised to restore the Jamaican economy, if the JLP was elected as the next government.

“Under Bruce Golding, and under myself as minister of finance, should he decide to appoint me to that position, the JLP has a plan to restore the economy of Jamaica.,” Shaw said.

The JLP said rebuilding Jamaica was of critical importance, because of the country’s heavy indebtedness. “.

The JLP has a plan to deal with the problem of debt, the debt burden in the country, we have laid out a preliminary plan in parliament, but we are now finalising the details of our plans that will shortly be published in the party’s manifesto. We have the policies that will allow for the restoration of the economy, so that people can get jobs again, and people can have hope in the future of Jamaica once again, that we can live a life of peace and prosperity in Jamaica,” he said.

Meanwhile, Derrick Smith, the JLP’s spokesman on crime, said there have been expressions of disappointment with the way the security portfolio has been handled, but he said Golding has given a solemn promise to grant the resources needed to attack the problem.

The latest opinion poll by the Stone polling organisation, published in the Observer on Wednesday, showed the JLP with 28.6 per cent, while 28.7 favoured the ruling People’s National Party (PNP). The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent.

The ruling PNP has been in power since February 1989.

virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com