The leadership of the People’s National Party (PNP) yesterday signalled that Comrades will be going after the local government elections on November 28 with a vengeance to ensure that all 13 parish councils and the Portmore municipality remain in the hands of the Opposition.

“While it is usual for the political party who wins the general election to also take local government, we are going to vigorously defend all parish councils…we have to go out there and defend the stewardship of the People’s National Party in this election. We missed a grand opportunity in the general election in February, ” party leader, Portia Simpson Miller told councillors, councillor candidates and supporters who attended the PNP’s public session of the first of two local government candidates’ meeting at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston.

She emphasised that councillors must work hard in their divisions if they expect to win. “Let us go into the streets and lanes and the homes and talk to the people. If you do not get on the ground among the people, do not cry when you do not win,” she told Comrades, pointing out that candidates must be confident, even in divisions which are considered Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) strongholds.

Issuing a similar mandate to candidates, Opposition spokesperson on finance and campaign director for the PNP’s losing February 25 General Election effort, Dr Peter Phillips, told the gathering that, “Come November 28, the PNP candidates are in it to win.”

He cautioned against complacency, pointing out that the local elections like the general election of February 25, require all boots on the ground.

“This election is an election that involves the councilors and councillor candidates on the ballot, but it involves every single Comrade to be involved to ensure that it is not the councillors alone, but it is the entire party to ensure the victory for the People’s National Party,” he stated, stressing that Members of Parliament, officers of the party, and former councillors must all work to bring home a PNP victory.

He argued that the local election has always been important to the party and at the centre of its vision for the country. “Our party has moved to extend the power and the authority of local government institutions…we are the party that advocated for local government authorities not to be subject to central government, but to have their own line of resources through the parochial revenue fund,” Phillips stated.

He took a jab at the ruling JLP for what he said was an intent not to operate the parochial revenue fund in the spirit that it was intended. “[It was] not for political manipulation by the Government, but to service the interest of people in communities. That is what it was for, and that is what we must defend in this campaign,” he said.

Phillips contended that, despite the inroads made to establish local government in the Constitution, there is still need for entrenchment, accusing successive JLP administrations of seeking to “tamper” with local government institutions.

The Government on Thursday announced the November 28 date for the next local government election, and named Friday, November 11 as nomination day.

The Opposition dominated the 2012 local government elections taking all 13 parish councils and the Portmore municipality. Early forecasts from political analysts are that the JLP could win as many as eight councils — the KSAC, Clarendon, St James, St Mary, Portland, Trelawny, Hanover, and St Elizabeth.

The local government election will come just two days before the publishing of the updated voters’ list. In the 2012 parish council elections, 572,383 (35 per cent) votes were cast out of a total of 1.6 million people on the voters’ list. In the Portmore municipality 24,063 (30 per cent), from the list of 80,438 voters, cast ballots.