IT was a tour that was, for the most part, expected to highlight the ills of the recent Manatt/Coke Commission of Enquiry and the findings of its three-member panel.

Yet, for the better part of the first of its two-day outing, the People’s National Party ‘Express’ took on the flavour of a political party in campaign mode, as if a general election was only weeks away.

The tour’s genesis at Naggo Head, Portmore in St Catherine was highlighted by a gathering of sorts where, among other things, there were introductions of persons who would likely represent the party in the parish in the general election expected sometime next year.

After a late jump from the starting blocks, the procession, comprising huge buses, sports utility vehicles and cars, entered the Corporate Area with much fanfare, witnessed by many, including those bewildered by the spectacle.

“Is wha’ a gwaan?” one woman asked another standing opposite to the transport centre in the heart of Half-Way-Tree.

“Nuh de PNP motorcade… dem a go all over Jamaica,” responded the other.

“Oh, but me never hear ’bout that, den dem can go round Jamaica inna one day?” the first woman responded.

Early indications that the party would have challenges sticking to its schedule were borne out at Half-Way-Tree when the official at the head of the team kept hustling members of the procession along.

“You have to move faster. We late already and we need to push on,” he said.

Nonetheless, working in conjunction with police outriders, the challenge of getting the convoy up to Manor Park, Constant Spring became almost a stroll in the park. There, scores of party supporters exhibited their orange gear to lend support to those on tour.

The noise decibels rose when PNP president Portia Simpson Miller came into full view.

Riding in a white bus with party bigwigs Dr Peter Phillips, Dr Fenton Ferguson, Noel ‘Butch’ Arscott, Dr Wykeham McNeill, Dr Omar Davies, Natalie Neita-Headley, Angella Brown-Burke, and Angella’s husband Paul Burke, Simpson Miller waved energetically as supporters responded in like manner.

Stony Hill square in West Rural St Andrew was a different scenario. Known as a stronghold of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party, the main thoroughfare to St Mary and Portland from Constant Spring had sprinklings of green at key points.

One man paced the sidewalk as the Opposition crawled by.

“Me a ‘Shower’ (slogan for the JLP),” said the man who sported a Rastafarian hairstyle, as he clutched a green bottle with his favourite brew.

“A Labour party me a say every time,” he continued to mutter.

The next scheduled spot meeting was arranged for Annotto Bay in the heart of South East St Mary, but an army of supporters descended on the procession at Golden Spring square, an area known to favour the PNP, forcing the tour to tarry.

The crowd insisted that Simpson Miller had to address them, and she obliged, with added ‘lyrics’ from MP for KD Knight, whom the crowd called ‘Star Boy’, as cheering party enthusiasts held constituency caretaker Paul Buchanan aloft in the manner of a lightweight jockey.

Buchanan, who has made peace with Simpson Miller following her rejection of him after he was selected to run in Central Westmoreland in the 2007 general election, had also argued for an adjustment to be made to the schedule out of respect for the people who turned up to see Simpson Miller.

One of Buchanan’s staunch supporters, Osmond White, a carpenter by trade who had joined the tour at Stony Hill, then put on his own show.

Riding his Honda 50 motorcycle and dressed like a relaxed, cape-less orange Superman, White found a game supporter as his pillion, shook off concerns about the state of his bike and the absence of helmets for himself and his partner, and proceeded on the 40-kilometre journey to the motorcade’s next stop at Annotto Bay.

He led the procession most of the time, daringly weaving his bike from side to side like the ‘dollying’ riders of the 1970s. At time he was forced to stop to allow the tour vehicles to catch up with him, dancing as they whizzed by him before jumping back on his bike and zipping past all and sundry on the road.

“Bwoy, di trip yah nice, but me haffi ride back a town yah now,” White said between sips of his alcoholic beverage at the end of another spot meeting.

“Me feel good ’bout this man. A far me haffi go back but me no mind that… PNP all the way,” White said.

Historically, St Mary is regarded as PNP turf, but the party lost two of three seats in the last general election and is doing everything to regain the confidence of the voters.

Along the route to the next stop of Port Maria, the parish capital, fans greeted the PNP Express with waves, cheers and antics.

Workers stood outside buildings, some smiling but declining to wave, seemingly unwilling to raise suspicion regarding their preferred political choice.

One man working at the Port Maria Cemetery went all out to show that his feeling for the ruling party were far from dead.

“A Shower me a say, me cyaan change… Labour all the way!”

More JLP supporters gathered in Port Maria, some mingling with their orange-clad opponents in what seemed a strong show of unity that would later prompt a mention from Dr Phillips as he spoke on platform.

One woman, decked in green, produced the JLP’s iconic symbol: a large bell, painted green, that seemed to have the potential of being heard all the way in Westmoreland at the opposite end of the island, if she were allowed to ring it.

She posed for photos with a PNP supporter as if they were Siamese twins.

Across the road, another woman dressed in an orange polo shirt took on her member of Parliament, Dr Morais Guy.

“Dr Guy naah do nutten fi St Mary, nutten at all,” she said. “The whole place just run dung and nutten naw gwaan dung ya, but a just because him a PNP and we no want the Labourite dem win everything inna de parish,” she declared.

But the complaints from other PNP supporters were louder.

“A pure chicken back me haffi a nyam,” said one woman, who claimed to have mothered four children.

“Me nuh know a wha’ the Labourite dem do wid de country. Everything just dead so. Nobody nuh have no money fi spend,” another man said.

Western St Mary’s primary town, Oracabessa, a 15-minute drive from the tourist town of Ocho Rios, has also been fiercely loyal to the PNP historically, although incumbent MP Robert Montague has made major inroads since he was elected in 2007.

Montague’s political savvy has made him the most respected JLP candidate in the parish.

With the new Ian Fleming airport opened and roads in the constituency either improved, in the process of being improved, or set for improvement, the PNP was forced to dig deep for a solid candidate with a powerful background.

Cue Jolyan Silvera, a cousin of former Home Affairs and Justice Minister Noel Silvera, who served as a member of former Prime Minister Michael Manley’s Cabinet when the PNP ended 10 years of JLP rule by sweeping to power in 1972.

“Him look good eeh,” one woman was overheard telling another as young Silvera took the microphone. “A real face bwoy dat,” she said.

Judging from the cheers, Silvera also sounded good to the crowd. But none, including Simpson Miller and Knight, grabbed the attention of the hundreds present, like Roger Clarke, the party’s spokesman on agriculture.

Regaling the receptive crowd with story after story, Clarke left some wondering when they should take him seriously.

“Cassava was supposed to be Viagra, but weh it dey?” he said, after reeling off figures that he said showed a fall-off in production of sugar, banana, some ‘green’ vegetables’, milk and beef. In the process he also took a swipe at former Agriculture Minister Dr Chris Tufton, whom he referred to as Dr Chris ‘Tough Times’.

His introduction of Simpson Miller, laced with the romantic entreaties of an imminent marriage proposal, had some looking around to see if her husband Errald was in earshot.

The PNP convoy soon rode merrily into the blazing sun that had by that time of afternoon, lost its bite.

Onward to Boscobel and into Ocho Rios, St Ann’s Bay, Discovery Bay it rolled, climaxing day one with a mass rally at the politically disputed Falmouth Square, almost two hours later than expected.