Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth – Broderick Wright, a long-serving, colourful, and sometimes controversial politician at the Local Government level, died in the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay on November 1 of kidney failure following a long struggle with diabetes.

He was 71.

Representing the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Wright served as parish councillor for the Lacovia Division in North West St Elizabeth from 1998 to late last year when he retired from active politics. Before that in the 1980s he served for several years in the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) as the JLP councillor for Seivwright Gardens.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding was among those paying tribute to Wright last week. Speaking at a South West St Elizabeth constituency meeting in Newell last Sunday, Golding recorded his “personal thanksgiving” for Wright’s “life, for the work that he did, for the contribution that he made and the many people that he assisted in the name of the Jamaica Labour Party”.

Member of Parliament for North West St Elizabeth, J C Hutchinson, with whom Wright had an openly rocky relationship, praised the late councillor for his approach to representation.

“He was very forceful in his representation for the people of his division. a very strong defender of his people,” said Hutchinson.

At Thursday’s regular monthly meeting of the St Elizabeth Parish Council, a number of councillors stood in praise of their late colleague. They included Ernest Hendricks (JLP, New Market Division), Donovan Pagon (PNP, Braes River Division), Donald Simpson (JLP, Malvern Division) and Stallyn Brown (JLP, Santa Cruz Divsion) all of whom served with Wright in the last council; as well as George Powell (JLP) who succeeded Wright as councillor for Lacovia and mayor of Black River, Jeremy Palmer (JLP).

They remembered Wright as outspoken, aggressive, jocular, kind but most of all as one “who very strongly represented his people”.

“This council room has not been and will never be the same without him,” said Pagon.

“He enjoyed politics which is probably the reason he was so successful,” said Palmer.

Shirley Myers (JLP, Southfield Division) hailed Wright as one who held no malice. “He would curse anybody at all, but right after that you could eat out of his hand,” Myers told the Observer.

Close friend and former councillor for the Ipswich Division, Evan Chen Lyn, described Wright as “more than a mentor” and one who was extremely kind. “He could never say no to anyone,” said Chen.

Always intent on speaking his mind and never prepared to back away from controversy, Wright made headlines and raised eyebrows in 2006 when he led the way as the St Elizabeth Parish Council objected to plans for the 200th commemoration of the 1807 abolition of the British transatlantic slave trade.

Wright cited what he said was a position taken decades earlier by National Hero Sir Alexander Bustamante, founder of the JLP, that Jamaicans should seek to celebrate their achievements and should not look back at their “shame”.

Pressed from every side, the parish council would later retreat from its initial position, but Wright stood firm.