FORMER Jamaica Labur Party (JLP) young professionals leader, Delano Seiveright, says that Audley Shaw deserves an opportunity to lead the party and the country.

In a message to Sunday’s Team Audley Shaw Youth Rally on the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Seiveright said that, as young people, the students should work harder to have Shaw elected at the leadership election on November 10.

“Our party has arrived at a critical intersection with two distinctly different pathways to the future. As young people, we already know that it is best to go the way that entrenches party democracy, cement a clear national and party vision, brings about renewed energy, is driven by empirical data, and encourages new ideas and the full participation of persons within our age group,” Seiveright said.

“Our overwhelming support for Shaw is not based on age and/or other peripheral considerations, but on pure meritocracy: Audley Shaw simply embodies the qualities and experience urgently required to turn the party around and give it a soul again,” his message stated.

Seiveright, who was in Denver, Colorado, attending the 2013 International Drug Policy Reform Conference on Sunday, said in his message that Shaw’s “sterling service to party and country” could not be discounted.

He said that Shaw is more than prepared for leadership, based on his years as a public servant focused on driving investments, loyalty and hard work as an Opposition member of Parliament; and impressive work as finance minister in steering the Jamaican economy through the worst economic crisis in near a century makes him more than prepared for leadership

“Beyond that, his friendly, down-to-earth and clear-minded personality will not only unite the party, but begin to instill a culture of inclusiveness, fairness and ultimately lead to a reduction in the unbridled insecurity and paranoia long plaguing party leadership,” he said.

Seiveright suggested that Shaw’s “phenomenal communications skills” will whip up a recently demotivated JLP base, “and get us all in the frame of mind to do the groundwork so seriously required”.