THE People’s National Party’s (PNP) Peter Bunting came an hour late, waving through the sun-roof of an SUV, a trailer with dancing girls behind him. Sally Porteous of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), who a member of her team said had been waiting for the PNP supporters to clear out, came as a passenger on motorcycle, which circled the nomination centre, and the Mandeville park before she dismounted at the steps of the Mandeville courthouse.

The Nomination Day drama in Manchester Central was in the arrivals.

“Sorry about that [being late]” Bunting’s campaign manager and former Member of parliament, an almost breathless John Junor said to the returning officer, “the traffic.”

That out of the way, Junor reached into his little black bag for the nomination papers. And he didn’t wait for returning officer Roderick Harley to ask for the money, he presented three one thousand dollar notes, pointing out that they bore the image of “Comrade Michael Manley”.

During Porteous’ nomination, however, after the Electoral Office of Jamaica officials had sorted the names of the 10 witnesses, the money was not immediately forthcoming.

“May I request the cash,” Harley said, then came that split second, as nothing happened. “The money,” he said quickly.

Six five hundred dollar notes emerged from a brown envelope almost as quickly. Harley asked Porteous to spell her surname, wrote up the receipt and she was done.

She stood on the balcony of the courthouse and waved to the crowd below, which although no match for the numbers of Bunting’s less than an hour earlier, was not lacking in enthusiasm.

Bunting said his victory in the constituency lay in the “groundswell” of supporters outside the nomination centre. Porteous, who appealed for a peaceful campaign, said the rest of the day would entail a “very big party” and she would continue to lead Bunting in the constituency until August 27, when she will take the victory.

Over in Manchester North Eastern, the JLP’s Audley Shaw was at the centre of what appeared to be a massive marching band of supporters.

So daunting was the marching crowd that a trailer coming from the opposite direction, had to come to a complete stop minutes before deciding to just turn back.

A siren blared, the people chanted and they all walked up the road to the Christiana courthouse, congregated at the gate, continued to chant and waited for their candidate to be formally nominated and return to them.

Shaw dismissed the PNP’s Paul Lyn as simply his “fifth victim” in reference to his 14 years as member of parliament for the constituency. He said of all his opponents over the years, Lyn was the “weakest”.

Shaw then proceeded to address the crowd from atop a van in the middle of the road.

Lyn’s nomination reportedly went incident free. In Manchester South, the PNP’s Michael Peart and the JLP’s Richard Hector were also nominated.