THE race for the much- coveted position of mayor of Portmore has intensified, with one challenger describing his main competitor as an underperformer, and the other insisting that he has delivered.

Keith Hinds, the incumbent, is representing the Jamaica Labour Party, while his challenger will again be former mayor and People’s National Party (PNP) representative George Lee, who in 2003 became the first mayor of the municipality when he defeated Hinds.

But the two will not be the only persons in the race for the mayoral position as social worker and guidance counsellor Alric Davis has entered as an independent.

Not his first time in the mayoral race, Davis told reporters that he, too, was fed up with the quality of representation that the country’s largest community has been receiving from the leadership of the municipal council.

Amidst much fanfare, the three were nominated Monday at the Ascot High School in Portmore, St Catherine. They were among several candidates from both major political parties who were nominated at the centre, even as the teaching and learning process unfolded.

Lee, who travelled in a lengthy convoy of orange-clad supporters, was the first to arrive at the Nomination Centre. On arrival at the entrance to the school, the vuvuzella-blowing comrades — who were supported by an energised drum corps — gave little consideration to the fact that school was in session, and it took the police some time to get them to reduce the decibel.

Lee was accompanied to the nomination area by his wife Anita, Member of Parliament for Southern St Catherine Fitz Jackson, and a little more than a dozen supporters who the police had granted access to the section of the classroom block that was cleared of students to facilitate Nomination Day activities.

After his nomination, Lee told journalists that he was looking to return to the Portmore Municipal Council to continue the work which he started in 2003.

“I think over the past four years the administration has failed the people of Portmore. I think that in every area of the core reasons for the municipality; fixing the roads, cleaning the drains, mosquito control, the environment, we have seen the municipality either stagnant or gone back in time because of the failure of the leadership of the municipality. I think on that basis the people of Portmore will reject Mr Hinds as mayor,” said Lee, who was also joined on the compound by PNP parliamentarians Colin Fagan and Arnaldo Brown, who had earlier accompanied three PNP councillors to the Nomination Centre in his East Central St Catherine constituency.

“We started that municipality in 2003 and we brought it to the point where it was one of the top five councils in the island. Mr Hinds got it, but he didn’t do anything, because he didn’t have a vision. We had a vision when we worked ten years to create the municipality,” said Lee.

Not long after, a fuming Hinds and his supporters turned up complaining that Lee and his supporters had overstayed their time at the centre, causing both parties to be at the venue at the same time. Such a situation is often avoided to reduce friction between rival supporters.

“Let me tell you something, it is the people who put you into power and the people who take you out of power. Persons who behave as if they know they are going to win maybe they have a formula, and the formula worked on the 29th (December) but it’s not going to work again on the 26th of March,” said the mayor in reference to his party’s general election defeat to the PNP.

Regarding his performance, Hinds blamed the media for not articulating his achievements. “What persons have been debating are minor issues. What you not seeing is the 20-odd parcels of land that are in council, titled, that Keith Hinds has gotten for Portmore. What you not hearing is the tax office, the only one of its kind open on a Saturday under my watch. What you not hearing is the Naggos Head bus park, which now operates and is earning money for the council. We are sitting down talking about issues of public health and drainage that the three PNP members of Parliament should have cleaned in my time and did not.

“I have performed excellently, I should get an A,” declared Hinds who disclosed that he was pursuing two MBAs even as he carries out his duties as mayor.