Not so, George! – Vaz
SAVANNA-LA-MAR- Westmoreland
People’s National Party (PNP) Member of Parliament for Westmoreland Central, Dwayne Vaz, has refuted claims made by George Wright, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) candidate for the constituency in the February 25 General Election, who had said that he polled more votes in three of the divisions in the constituency than Vaz.
Wright, who lost in his bid to represent the constituency after he was defeated by Vaz by a margin of 1,219 votes, told the
Jamaica Observer West last week that he got more votes than Vaz in the Cornwall Mountain, Petersfield and Frome divisions on election day.
But Vaz later told the
Observer West that it was only in the Cornwall Mountain Division — represented by the PNP’s Bernard Vanriel — where Wright was able to poll more votes than himself.
The final results of the February 25 General Election in the Westmoreland Central constituency supplied by the Electoral Office of Jamaica revealed that Vaz had polled 2,359 votes to Wright’s 1,743 in the Savanna-la-Mar Northern Division; 2,130 votes to Wright’s 1,903 in the Savanna-la-Mar Division; 1,998 votes to Wright’s 1,803 in the Petersfield Division; 1,712 votes to Wright’s 1,529 in the Frome Division, while Wright polled 1,881 votes in the Cornwall Mountain Division, to Vaz’s 1,879.
Meanwhile, Vaz said he is confident that the Opposition PNP will retain all of the five divisions currently held by the party in Westmoreland Central in the upcoming local government polls.
“We are very confident that we will retain all the divisions. We have already selected our representatives for the various divisions and they are on the ground working. We are also doing our analysis of the recent general election, looking at our weaknesses and strengths, so that we can be able to maximise on the strengths that we have, and also to look on where we fell down in the last election and improve on it, so we are very confident that we will retain all the divisions,” Vaz emphasised.
Vaz, who was last week named Deputy Information and Knowledge Economy Spokesperson for the Opposition’s Spokespersons of Council, first won the Westmoreland Central seat in a by-election in December 2014, following the death of veteran PNP politician Roger Clarke.
