ST ANN, Jamaica – With recent challenges against young People’s National Party (PNP) representatives by older members of the party who are seeking to be elected representatives, at least two of the younger party representatives have expressed their displeasure with how young political representatives are being treated.

Both Raymond Pryce and Lisa Hanna raised the issue and got favourable responses while speaking to members of the PNP Youth Organisation at their biennial congress at the Ocho Rios High School in St Ann.

Pryce insisted that the young people of the party provided more than just support on political campaigns and participating in the voting process. He questioned whether or not the young people of the party were tricked into believing that the party believed in young people during the 2011 general election.

“Is this People’s National Party the same People’s National Party that said we care for the development of youths? Because nobody in the PNP can talk about our achievement of our young people more eloquently than me. You can wake me up at 2 o’clock in the morning and I can tell you every mince of advancement that has been done for young people by the People’s National Party,” Pryce said to explosive applause before listing the PNP’s achievements for young people over the years.

“Why is it we were so capable, so energetic, so relevant, so valuable, so important in December 2011 and all of a sudden we are so optional in 2015? And, if you are sitting there behaving like you are 40 years older than you are, then maybe you are reflecting for the People’s National Party the changes that they have been proposing that sends a picture to you as young people that we have become not a party for the youth, but a party for some special people and the rest of us are to go out on election day with our index fingers to mark an ‘x’ beside the head and dip our fingers in the ink and then sit down and watch everybody else advance and everybody else benefit,” a very passionate Pryce argued. “It nah go work.”

Pryce referred to the constituencty of South West St Elizabeth where he said “a 36-year-old member of Parliament is being sabotaged by somebody who is 62 years old, who had always been there in South West St Elizabeth, and when the going was rough and comrade Hugh Buchanan was walking the hills and valleys of South West St Elizabeth. Where was Ewan Stephenson?”

The very expressive Pryce boldly stated that he did not want members of the party to be nervous that he has become a revolutionary.

“I have not become a revolutionary; I am a revolutionary,” he insisted.

He also called on the leadership of the youth organisation to let their voices be heard.

Hanna, who addressed the gathering before Pryce, said one of the ways forward is that the party has to protect its young members of Parliament and councillors.

“We have to protect those MPs and those councillors. We have to protect them. We can’t say we are a party of the youth and you are fighting the young MPs and the young councillors,” Hanna stated.

In the meantime, several senior members of the party said they support the youth.

Admitting that the young people are coming under pressure, Minister of Local Government and Community Development Noel Arscott stated that they have his support.

Arscott also used the opportunity to caution that the issue not create a division in the party.

“Every time the PNP has lost an election, it was during a division,” he stated.

Minister of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change Robert Pickersgill and guest speaker Phillip Pauwell, minister of Science, Technology and Mining, also stated that they supported the youth of the party.

The youth congress also included a private question and answer segment with new PNP convert Joan Gordon Webley on Saturday.

Renae Dixon