PNP holds crucial NEC meeting Sunday
THE ruling People’s National Party (PNP) will on Sunday make a final attempt to quash post-presidential disunity and clean up its image following the bitter candidate selection process, when comrades gather for an extra ordinary meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) in Kingston.
The meeting, to be held at the Jamaica Conference Centre, will see the unveiling of the party’s full slate of candidates for municipal elections, and 59 of 60 for general elections.
Party spokesman Christopher Castriota said the meeting will be a crucial one, and that all major players in the organisational level of the party are expected to be in attendance. He expects between 1,000 and 1,200 persons to be there.
“The meeting is this big because the party president wants to ensure that the critical members of the constituency management committees will get the charge first hand, and not hear it second hand,” Castriota told the Observer.
Asked if president Portia Simpson Miller would be addressing the public show of disunity in the party, Castriota said the address would be wide-ranging.
Meanwhile, Castriota confirmed that a candidate would not be introduced for the St Ann North East constituency, where less than two weeks ago the incumbent MP and tourism minister, Aloun Assamba, told the party she would not be its candidate in the upcoming elections.
A candidate has not been selected to replace Assamba, but Dr Francis Barnett, Carol Jackson and businesswoman Sheree Brown were said to be among persons eying the seat.
At the last NEC meeting, national campaign director Paul Robertson had put on notice 10 constituencies whose organisations were said to be in shambles, and where candidates’ performance were rated poorly.
The PNP, in a statement yesterday, said among the invitees to attend Sunday’s crucial NEC meeting will be former parliamentarians, all councillors, councillor caretakers, constituency campaign managers, constituency secretaries, and 10 campaign executive committee members from each constituency.
virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com
