Bruce Golding said yesterday that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is sharpening up its communications and election day machinery in anticipation of very early elections.

“As we go around the island, we are going to be sharpening up on our messaging,” Golding, the JLP leader, said. “We made some decisions over the weekend, specific decisions about new approaches to the communications strategy and that is to be developed as we get closer to the campaign.”

He said that in addition to that, the JLP has been paying specific attention to the work on the ground leading up to and including election day.

“I am putting extra emphasis this time on the election day operations, because there are seats that we lost the last time on election day. And it was not tiefin’ that caused us to lose some of those seats. Some of those seats we lost because we were not sufficiently organised to get out our votes. I am not taking that chance this time,” he said.

Golding was speaking to JLP delegates attending the monthly meeting of the Opposition party’s Area Council One, which includes all 15 Corporate Area constituencies, at the Dunoon Park Technical High School in Kingston. The JLP has eight of the constituencies.

He warned the delegates to be prepared for general elections “very soon”.

“The way things are going now, this may be the last time I am with you before the big thing,” he said.

He predicted huge majorities for the JLP coming out of St Ann, St James, St Elizabeth and Trelawny.

In terms of St Mary, Golding warned, “whatever days we have left for Parliament to sit, Harry Douglas (MP, St Mary South-East) must savour every moment of it…”

“And right throughout the country, if you go to Manchester, you go to Clarendon, you go to St Catherine, you go to St Thomas, you go to Portland. The work that we have been doing on the ground is going to demonstrate people power,” Golding said.

“It’s going to demonstrate that you could have meeting ’til you drop down. You could give away fertiliser and big breed goat ’til you drop down. What we have brought home to the people is that effective representation cannot be about (just) election time.”