MANDEVILLE, Manchester – For 55 years, dating back to 1959, at least one member of the Peart family has actively represented the People’s National Party (PNP) in Manchester, mostly as member of parliament.

All of that will change come the next parliamentary election which is constitutionally due by late next year but which could come long before that should Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller so choose.

On an evening high on comedy but also symbolism, Comrades recently witnessed the handing over of the baton by Michael Peart, member of parliament for Manchester Southern, to the man he hopes to succeed him, educator Michael Stewart.

“Yu looking at Usain Bolt’s bredda,” declared Peart, just before his high-stepping baton handover to Stewart, who raced off into the crowd as Comrades roared with laughter.

Earlier that evening at the Porus Primary School, Stewart had received the unanimous vote of delegates to take over from Peart as PNP candidate and standard bearer for Manchester Southern in the next election. Stewart has been constituency chairman for the past three years.

Michael Peart has served Manchester Southern as MP since 1993. His father Ernest served as an MP in Manchester Western, subsequently Manchester North Western, from 1959 to 1978 when he was appointed High Commissioner to London.

Michael’s brother Dean was MP for Manchester North Western from 1989 to 2011.

The outgoing MP, who is Speaker of the House of Representatives, boasted that the transition from himself to Stewart was in the classic “democratic” mould of internal PNP politics.

“What we have demonstrated is how Norman Manley (National Hero and the founding president of the party) say the PNP must run… how you must run the party from groups up to national conference, and how you change leaders through the democratic process,” said Michael Peart.

He voiced confidence in Stewart whom he said had proven himself as an able replacement. Peart said he would be immediately joining with Stewart “on the road” to “fully prepare the people for elections”, which he believed would come “before Christmas”.

In thanking constituents for their support down the years, Peart had a special word for women whom he said had served with “distinction”. Time was also taken at the constituency conference to honour several Comrades who had served the Manchester Southern constituency over many years.

Rich tribute was paid to Peart by various speakers, including Stewart, national security minister and Member of Parliament for Manchester Central Peter Bunting, newly elected chairman of the PNP’s Region Five (St Elizabeth and Manchester) Mikael Phillips, PNP General Secretary Paul Burke, and Finance Minister Peter Phillips.

The last spoke at length about the Jamaican economy against the backdrop of what he said was the need for Comrades to get ready for elections, which he said will come within a year. Phillips, who is the PNP’s campaign director for elections, warned that a loss to the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) would constitute a backward step in the drive to restructure Jamaica’s economy.

“We cannot afford that the foundations that have been laid are set back because of our failure to organise well for the elections which must come within the next year,” he said.

“We don’t want the country to be diverted from this mission that is before us. So we don’t want any long, drawn-out process of electioneering; we want the investors to feel confident that there is a steady hand steering the affairs of the people, and that is the hand of the People’s National Party,” said Phillips.

An upbeat Phillips said his government’s record of having passed every test set by the International Monetary Fund in the current loan arrangement with the multilateral agency reflected steady progress in correcting economic ills.

He boasted that the Government had made a significant dent in the debt-to-GDP ratio — an effort which was boosted by the debt buy-back arrangement with Venezuela under the PetroCaribe Energy Co-operation Agreement.

Jamaica’s debt was now down to 126 per cent of GDP down from 145 per cent when the PNP took office in 2012. Crucially, he said, when the Government took power in 2012, eighty cents in the dollar was being used “paying off debt and paying wages”. This had been reduced to “55 per cent now and is going to become lower”, said Phillips.

International reserves, which were US$800 million in March of 2013, now stood at US$2.4 billion, and unemployment, “which was 16 per cent in 2012, now stands today at 13.2 per cent; it is still too high, but it is moving in the right direction,” said Phillips.

He claimed that investments were on the rise and so was business confidence. He cited moderate return to economic growth with projections of 1.5 per cent to three per cent for the year.

Seventeen hundred hotel rooms were either being built or were being refurbished with thousands more at the planning approval and design stage, said Phillips.

Phillips reiterated that this year five more agro parks will be developed in addition to the existing nine to boost farm produce and reduce the dependence on imported food.

“Many people talk all the while about what is happening with the dollar (value depreciation), but I tell you one thing that is happening. When the [currency] values change is that it becomes easier for our farmers to sell their crops in Jamaica so that we don’t subsidise farmers in America and Europe by buying their food, but [we will] put farmers to work feeding Jamaican people,” Phillips said.