Although the People’s National Party (PNP) lost power to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in a general election on February 25 this year, PNP President Portia Simpson Miller does not believe that the majority of the people will let her party down a second-straight time.

Responding to journalists at a nomination Day exercise at Greenwich All-Age School in her St Andrew South Western constituency last Friday, Simpson Miller, the leader of the Opposition in Jamaica’s Parliament, is optimistic of a victory by her party in the municipal poll, officially called local government election, on November 28.

The PNP holds power in all 14 municipalities, but based upon the results of the last general election it is widely felt that the JLP will gnaw away at some of that achievement and take some councils.

Overall, there are 228 divisions across Jamaica.

“We have high hopes. The candidates are on the ground and working very hard. I hope that we can continue to lead local government in the country,” she stated.

The PNP machinery in St Andrew South Western has nominated incumbent councillors Karl Blake (Greenwich Town Division), Eugene Kelly (Whitfield Town Division) and Audrey Smith Facey (Payne Land Division). They will be going up against the JLP’s Maureen Lorne, Carlos King, and Devon Clarke respectively.

“We understand the importance of local government to communities,” Simpson Miller went on, “and I expect the PNP to do very well”.

She scoffed at the view that the Jamaican people were prospering under the new JLP Administration.

“I hear people questioning the prosperity message. The fact that the prime minister had promised that, should he win the election, then everyone could go to bed with their doors and their windows open — now, that would be a prescription for danger to the people if they have listened to him and done that,” she said in reference to the crime situation which has seen an increase in murders in recent months, compared to the same period in 2015.

Minutes before the Opposition leader made those comments, the sound of gunshots nearby had people in the nomination centre looking at each other.

“Wait, a wah dat, a clappers (firecrackers) or a di real thing?” one policeman was overheard asking a colleague.

It later emerged that Michael Coke, the son of former Tivoli Gardens gangster Christopher “Dudus” Coke — who is incarcerated in the United States — had been shot. His aunt, known as Sandy Coke, was also injured by glass splinters, while sitting councillor for the Tivoli Gardens Division in the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation Donovan Samuels dislocated his hip during a stampede.

The incident occurred in nearby Denham Town, about a kilometre east of the all-age school.