MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Audley Shaw strongly reiterated calls for a two-term limit for Jamaican prime ministers as he officially launched his campaign for leadership of the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party

(JLP) yesterday.

“We must introduce term limits for prime ministers of Jamaica; just like abroad dem have two terms and you done, it should be two terms in Jamaica as prime minister,” Shaw told hundreds of delegates who braved heavy rain to attend the launch at Manchester High School.

Shaw, who is to challenge incumbent JLP leader Andrew Holness at the party’s national conference in November, said after two five-year terms prime ministers “should step aside and move on…”

Shaw, who announced his acceptance of an invitation from a “media house” for a “national debate with (Holness) before the leadership elections, at anytime, any venue and on any topic”, said term limits should also apply to political leaders.

Term limits was a source of vigorous debate in the 1990s and early 2000s — passionately advocated by former prime minister Bruce Golding when he broke away from the JLP to lead the National Democratic Movement. Golding would return to the JLP to lead that party to electoral victory in 2007, but the issue of term limits has had less resonance since.

Golding retired as prime minister and party leader in late 2011, handing over to Holness just over two months before the December 2011 elections which the JLP lost to the People’s National Party (PNP).

With many Labourites standing in ankle-deep mud and water following an hour-and-a-half of mid-afternoon rain, Shaw also pledged to deepen and strengthen internal democracy in the JLP. In obvious reference to the bypassing of party delegates by the party leadership when Holness was chosen as leader, Shaw said the delegates should always have the final say.

“We must make it mandatory that the leader of the party must be appointed by the delegates and not be apointed by a few leaders in a private room,” he said.

Pointing to his 31 years of service in public life and his 26 years in politics — including as senator, general sectetary, deputy leader, shadow minister and four years as finance minister — the 61-year-old Shaw suggested he was well-equipped

to lead.

He pledged to listen to the “voice of the people” and to unite the party to achieve victory over the ruling PNP.

He told the delegates, “…don’t fool yourself, we have to work hard to win… And to win we must have decisive, inclusive and visionary leadership. There is no room for division. As one united party, we cannot speak in divisive terms about those who were NDM, PNP, brown man or money man”.

He reminded Labourites that the founder of the 70-yea -old JLP, Sir Alexander Bustamante, had also been a founding member of the PNP.

Shaw spoke of his vision of rebuilding “our great party” and to become government with the aim of a “better, brighter, fairer, and more just society”.

A government under his watch would seek to “sharply reduce crime, conflict, hatred, and divisiness…” he said.

Shaw, who arrived with his four-year-old daughter Christiana in his arms and his wife Susan by his side, spoke of plans for a revamping of education starting with a government-run infant school system. “Each child must be literate and ready for matriculation at Grade One,” he said.

Greater emphasis on mathematics, science and technology and a restrengthening of the student loan system would be on his agenda, he said.

And against the backdrop of yet another horrific accident in north Manchester last week, which left four students dead, Shaw pledged character education in schools and a transport system for students that will facilitate “dignity and safety”.

On the economic front, Shaw spoke of the need for a “powerful ministry of investment and economic development and a reformed bureaucracy to make it easier to do business, including paying taxes.

The function was chaired by JLP heavyweight and East Central St James member of parliament Ed Bartlett. Others endorsing Shaw at the meeting included former Cabinet minister (now retired from active politics) Neville Gallimore, MP North East St Catherine Gregory Mair, MP for West Portland Daryl Vaz, Ruddy Spencer of the Bustamane Industrial Trade Union, Chris Tufton, a deputy leader and JLP senator, Joan Gordon-Webley of the JLP Women’s Freedom Movement, and Warren Newby of Generation 2000.