A number of Jamaican Rastafarians are seeking to walk in the footsteps of Trinidadian Fitzgerald Hinds, who created history in 1995 when he became the first Rastafarian parliamentarian in the Caribbean and the world.

Traditionally, members of the Rastafari Community do not participate in the electoral process. But come tomorrow, no less than ten Rastafarian candidates will be seeking a seat in Parliament – the most since the late Ras Sam Brown broke the tradition in 1962.

The Imperial Ethiopian World Federation (IEWF) Incorporated Political Party has put up nine of the ten candidates. The other candidate is Ras Astor Black, founder/president of the Jamaica Alliance Movement (JAM), who is contesting the North Trelawny constituency as an independent candidate.

The candidates for the IEWF are:

. First vice-president Junior Anderson, Kingston Central;

. Assistant secretary Raoul Alder, St Andrew North East;

. Christopher “Freedom” Cousins, St Andrew North Central;

. Trevor Sharras South East St Catherine;

. Dilpi Champagnie, St Andrew North West;

. Theresa Bellanfante-Ellis, St Andrew Western;

. Lawrence McKenzie, West Rural St Andrew;

. Anthony Lemonious, Southern Trelawny; and

. Jeremiah Smith, Western Hanover.

The IEWF which has participated in three previous elections – the 1997 and 2002 general elections and the 2003 local government elections – is yet to win a seat in Parliament.

In fact, the party’s highest level of support, according to IEWF assistant secretary Raoul Alder, has never gone beyond 50-odd votes. However, the Rastafari party remains undaunted.

“We measure our success by the growth of the IEWF in terms of the number of candidates and the constituencies that we are participating in,” Alder said.

“First, we started out in only two parishes – Kingston and St Andrew and St Catherine. But now we are in Western Hanover and Southern Trelawny. We are in more constituencies now, and we’ve increased in size and numbers; we started out with five candidates and now we are at nine,” he said.

Alder told the Sunday Observer that he was confident that this time around the party would get a significant percentage of votes. In fact, he said the responses on the campaign trail have been encouraging.

“The people welcome us with open arms; even supporters from the other political parties,” he said, adding that he expected that all nine candidates would make an impact in their community.

“The difference with the IEWF representative is that all candidates are running on the platform of modern Ethiopianism. That is the ideology of Emperor Haile Selassie I. And a part of this ideology is that all candidates must live in their constituency, and have a vested interest in their community,” Alder explained.

“It’s grass roots representation,” he continued. “We live among the people, we know what the problems of the people are. Is not just campaigning with bread and butter. When we go out there, there is no free shirt. There is no Guinness. When you [people] open their hearts to the Rastafarian candidate now, is because them really see that the Rastafarian can make a change.

“And really and truly, it is the only real change that can be made. Because the other parties have ruled Jamaica before, the other parties have been in Parliament, Rastafarians are yet to be represented in Parliament. This is the only change Jamaican people can actually make,” Alder added.

Meanwhile, Black is no stranger to the electoral process, having contested the North West St James seat in 2002, and before that the North East St Ann by-election as well as the by-election in Eastern Westmoreland to elect a replacement for former Prime Minister P J Patterson.

Black, whose highest number of votes to date has been 47, is confident ahead of tomorrow’s elections.

The Rastafarian candidate for North Trelawny told the Sunday Observer that his aim is to give a voice to Rastafari, which he says does not have a voice here in Jamaica.

“My whole thrust in getting involved in politics is for promoting Rastafari, which has made Jamaica the seventh most popular place on earth. Yet still we have not been given the credit we truly deserve for making Jamaica so popular. And that my whole thrust for being involved in politics, is to push for the rights of Rastafari,” Black said.

Black’s symbol in the election is the Star of David, while the symbol of IEWF is the Lion.