Opposition Leader Bruce Golding last night welcomed the announcement of the date for the next general election, but felt that the country was “shafted” in terms of the seven-week wait.

“We are pleased that we now have a date. We are pleased that we won’t have to sit and wait until September or October, but in a real sense the country has been shafted, because the country is going to be subjected to the longest period of intense election campaigning, between announcements and nomination and election,” Golding said.

He was speaking at a press briefing held at the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) head office on Belmont Road, Kingston, immediately after Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller announced in Half-Way-Tree that Jamaicans will vote on August 27 after nominations are accepted on August 7.

The opposition leader said that his party felt that the prime minister was wrong to set such a long period of campaigning, but accepted that it was “her call”. He added that his party had the stamina to last out the long campaign.

“She has made her call, we are ready to face the elections,” Golding said.

He said that the country expected an announcement last night that would have set nomination day closer to a five-day minimum wait, and elections not more than 23, nor less than 16 days after that.

“It would have been possible for the prime minister today to have announced nomination day for Friday of this week, which would have facilitated an election being held either on the 30th or the 31st of July,” Golding told the briefing.

He said that the country needed an explanation as to “why it has been subjected to this long protracted period of intense political activity, with all the dangers and risks that that entails”.

It raised questions, he said, as to what it is that the Government is afraid of. Why does it need the extended period of time to subject the country to an intense political campaign, when the election would well have been held before emancipation and before independence.

Golding said that the prime minister’s action has reinforced in the leadership of his party’s mind, “the absolute necessity for us to amend the constitution and to require a fixed election date”.

He said that it was “fundamentally wrong” for the election date to be used as a strategic tool by the prime minister, and to be manipulated to satisfy the interest of the PNP.

“We give a commitment that when we become the government we are going to introduce in Parliament, within the first 100 days, a bill to amend the constitution to provide for a fixed election date, so that no prime minister, in the future, will be able to hold the country to ransom in this way,” Golding said.