Alligator Pond, Manchester – Such was the size of the crowd in this South Manchester fishing village, Opposition Leader Bruce Golding claims he became confused – if only for a moment.

“When I came in to Alligator Pond square and saw the crowd I was wondering whether I had dozed off and somebody decided to take the tour into Tivoli Gardens, because what I saw here was what I expect to see when I call down a ‘garden’ and I tell them I want to see them,” the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader told laughing, cheering supporters late Thursday.

Golding, the member of parliament for West Kingston, at the heart of which is the JLP stronghold of Tivoli Gardens, had arrived in Alligator Pond more than two hours late to close what he called a “wonderful” tour of South Manchester. He was now convinced, he said, that the party was on track to regain the seat it last won 26 years ago when the JLP swept parliamentary elections by a landslide of unprecedented proportions.

Richard Hector of the JLP is challenging the incumbent member of parliament, the ruling People’s National Party’s Michael Peart for the South Manchester seat. A pleased Hector announced that the tour and mass meeting were successful despite his constituency organisation getting just “two days’ notice” from party headquarters.

“This has always been a challenging constituency for the JLP,” Golding told the happy, relaxed crowd. “The last time we won was in 1980. I remember that campaign well because I was the general-secretary of the party and we were working with Arthur Williams. And when I went through the constituency with teacher Williams there was something there, there was a spirit that pressed against you. It was like a shower power moving like a magnet, moving here and moving there just like the Pentecost,” he said.

Now, said Golding triumphantly, he had gotten the same feeling in South Manchester that he had way back in 1980, and like he did then, he would be able to take out his “little notebook” and write “this one ketch”.

Noting that Alligator Pond was like “a gift from God” with enormous potential in terms of tourism and fishing, Golding told the crowd that “planning” will be a cornerstone of moves by a government led by him to develop that and all rural communities.

He insisted that Alligator Pond, and other similar villages in South Manchester and elsewhere had been shamefully neglected for over 17 years by the PNP Government. A JLP government led by him would be moving to correct that situation, he said.

As a first move, his government would “revisit” a project undertaken by his predecessor, JLP leader Edward Seaga, in the 1960s while the latter was minister of development and welfare.

“He (Seaga) created a five-year development plan in which he identified all the villages across Jamaica, designated some of them as urban centres, linked each village to an urban centre and sought to determine what each urban centre and what each village needed. Since that time no similar plan has been developed,” said Golding.

“One of the things we are going to do, we are going to revisit that approach, we are going to prepare a plan for every village across Jamaica. It will be designated. We must evaluate that village to determine what it needs, the urban centre to which it is going to relate, determine what are the things that it has, and what are the things that it needs. We must determine what its economic potential is and what must be done to strengthen that potential. That plan is going to become the blueprint for every minister of government,” Golding declared.

Building on a theme initiated earlier by Senator Christopher Tufton, candidate/caretaker for South West St Elizabeth who accused the Government of ignoring the plight of fisher folk, Golding spoke of plans for a “new kind” of fishing industry that will make the industry more viable for all those involved.

“Our inland fisheries will not be able to sustain our population, therefore we have to enable our fishermen to go to deep sea, for that is where the fish is,” he said. “Right now, Nicaraguan and Honduran fishermen taking up most of the fish that belong in the Jamaican waters, simply because they have the big boats that can go to deep sea.”

A government run by him would find ways to properly equip Jamaican fishermen with the wherewithal to compete at that level, he said.

And pointing to marine pollution as well as illegal practices such as dynamiting and deliberate contamination of the water to stun fish, which he argued was doing untold harm to fishing grounds, Golding said improved policing of the industry would also be a must.

Earlier Tufton accused the Government of failing to carry out a promise made five years ago for a loan scheme for fishermen. Also, hurricane damage to fishermen two years ago had been ignored by the Government, Tufton charged.

“Is almost as if fisher folk don’t exist,” he said.

Candidates from Manchester and St Elizabeth were among those bringing greetings to Thursday night’s mass meeting in support of Hector. They included JLP deputy leader Audley Shaw (North East Manchester), Clinton Dietrich (North West Manchester), Sally Porteous (Central Manchester), Frank Witter (South East St Elizabeth) and Tufton.