MONTEGO BAY, St James — Anticipation has heightened in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Area Council Four over today’s election for a leader for the 70-year-old political organisation.

Some 1,100 delegates

in Area Council Four — which comprises the parishes of Trelawny, St James, Westmoreland, Hanover and St Elizabeth — are eligible to vote in the party’s internal election, which will see Opposition Leader Andrew Holness facing a challenge from veteran politician and JLP deputy leader Audley Shaw for the party’s top post.

Both camps yesterday

said that their respective candidates has the support of the majority of delegates in the western region.

In St James, which has 343 delegates, the largest number of the five parishes in Area Council Four, Holness’s Team JLP is reporting that the vast majority of delegates in the parish have pledged their support for Holness to retain his leadership of the party.

“We are confident that Mr Holness will retain his position as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party. We are confident that he is best placed to enact the reforms necessary to move the JLP forward. We are also confident that the delegates of the Jamaica Labour Party understand the importance of securing their future and will, on Sunday (today), endorse Holness overwhelmingly,” said Homer Davis, a key organiser in St James from the Holness camp.

Team JLP has also reported that they have the support of the majority of delegates in the other parishes in Area Council Four.

But Dennis Meadows, a former Government senator and campaign co-ordinator for Shaw in St James, strongly disagrees with Davis’s assessment of the western region.

“The majority of the delegates in the constituencies in the region are solidly behind Mr Shaw, and I am satisfied that

Audley Shaw will win Area Council Four solidly. There is absolutely no doubt about that,” Meadows told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

“Our canvass has shown that we have the majority of delegates in all the parishes in the western Jamaica.”

According to Meadows, who unsuccessfully contested the North Trelawny constituency in the last two general elections, his team carried out a very effective campaign across Area Council Four.

“We approached every delegate personally, irrespective of what we canvassed them as. We did not shy away from those who we deemed were supportive of the other side,” Meadows said, adding that “we were very strident in our arguments but certainly not mean-spirited”.

But local political observer Chris Hylton believes that when the votes are tallied today, Holness will retain his job as leader of the party.

“When you look at the raw numbers, then certainly western Jamaica is behind the current leader of the Jamaica Labour Party,” said Hylton.

“If you look at the parish of St James, for example, four of the five constituencies there are solidly behind Andrew Holness. In East Central St James, where that constituency is represented by Ed Bartlett, who is supporting Shaw, the fact of the matter is that delegates there have mixed views about who they are supporting. So, it is really fair to say that St James is solidly behind Andrew Holness.”

Hylton added that while there are pockets of support for Shaw in the neighbouring parish of Hanover, he believes that Holness will get the majority of the delegates’ vote. The same, he said, can be said of Westmoreland and Trelawny.

He noted, too, that the majority of delegates in the parish of St Elizabeth are supporting Holness.

“So overall, my fervent assessment is that Holness will sweep the west convincingly,” said Hylton.