THE ruling People’s National Party (PNP) says all its 60 candidates for the next general elections will be in place before the next meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC), scheduled for March 25.

General Secretary Donald Buchanan, in an interview following Tuesday’s 10th anniversary lecture marking the passing of late former prime minister and PNP president Michael Manley at the Pegasus Hotel, said the process has been long, but the democratic process within the party must be encouraged and strengthened.

“We are currently conducting ‘soundings’ within the constituencies. That is one way of choosing a representative. But if we cannot come up with a candidate, there are other alternatives,” Buchanan said.

Soundings, according to Buchanan, include consultations with the leadership of the constituencies, but, failing a consensus, “the selection will be put to a vote to deepen the democratic process in the party”.

At the last meeting of its NEC for 2006, the party presented 58 candidates at the Jamaica Conference Centre.

However, two subsequent resignations left the party without four candidates, one of which was finalised on Sunday when former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) member Abe Dabdoub, who crossed the parliamentary benches to sit on the government side in January, was presented as the representative for Portland West.

Constituencies currently without a PNP representative are St Elizabeth North- Western; St Ann South-Eastern and Clarendon North-Central.

The two prospective candidates in St Elizabeth are former Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) president Juno Gayle and Ann Marie Warburton, Buchanan said.

A crowded field of four have lined up for the St Ann South-East constituency currently represented by tourism minister Aloun Assamba. Party sources say the front-runners for the seat are businesswoman Sheree Brown-McDonald and Bevon Morrison. However, Buchanan said all four are front-runners.

The PNP general secretary was unable to say who has emerged for the Clarendon North-Central seat, which was left without a PNP representative after it was vacated by Desmond Brennan.

The party’s candidates selection process had been beset by problems which disintegrated into outbreaks of raw hostility in the immediate aftermath of the presidential elections last year February.