OPPOSITION Leader Bruce Golding says that after 18 years as government, the People’s National Party (PNP) is beginning to think that it has become a way of life.

“When a party, when one set of people are in power for too long, they get to a stage where it get into their heads that they are a way of life,” Golding told a massive crowd of JLP supporters crammed into Stony Hill Square, West Rural St Andrew, Sunday night.

“When they get to that stage there is nothing that they won’t do. There is no abuse that they won’t perpetrate. There is no advantage that they won’t take,” he added.

The Opposition leader’s arrival at the rally, following a tour to support MP for West Rural St Andrew, Andrew Gallimore, was delayed for some two hours primarily because of an incident at Brandon Hill in which shots were fired at the motorcade from the hills causing the police to divert some of the vehicles from the area.

Golding said that while Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has claimed divine selection, her predecessor PJ Patterson has now assumed the role of God himself.

“You can tell when a government is in power for too long. They start to look and sound like Papa Doc. They start to look and sound like any common tyrant and dictator.

“The prime minister declares that she was appointed, not by the PNP delegates up at Jamaica College, she was appointed by God and if you don’t support her you going against God’s will.

“What she is saying to you, is that if you decide that you can’t take no more of this government, if you decide that 18 and a half years are too long and you decide that you want to get rid of this government, what she saying is that God going vex with you. It is an hypocrisy. It is an arrogance that is dangerous,” the Opposition Leader said.

According to Golding, “there are some people in this government who, whenever they have a difference with God, they say God wrong”.

“Look at the nonsense in Montego Bay last week, when PJ Patterson now decides that he is God, and he went down to Montego Bay to tell the people of Montego Bay that, ‘you committed a grave sin when you voted for the Labour Party in 2002, but I PJ, I have a forgiving heart and I will forgive you if you repent and vote for the PNP this time.What a piece of…!” he stopped short, greeted by shouts of “don’t say it” and “hold yu mouth” from the crowd.

Golding said that the time has come when the people must take a stand.

“Enough is enough. It is time for a new day,” he said.

The meeting was chaired by Mayor of Kingston, Councillor Desmond McKenzie.

Other speakers included Derrick Smith, JLP deputy leader; Karl Samuda, general secretary; Delroy Chuck, MP for North-Central St Andrew; Dr St Aubyn Bartlett; Joan Gordon-Webley, candidate for South East St Andrew; Joseph Hibbert, MP for East Rural St Andrew; Bobby Montaque, mayor of Port Maria; and a number of councillors from the constituency.