President of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) Portia Simpson Miller is expected to announce a timetable for her departure as head of the 79-year-old political party today.

The meeting of the party’s powerful National Executive Council (NEC), the second- highest decision-making group within the PNP, is likely to hear Simpson Miller address members during its regular meeting to be held at the Hatfield Primary and Junior High School in Manchester.

“The party leader is scheduled to be in attendance and an important announcement is expected to be made,” one senior officer of the party told the Jamaica Observer yesterday, in response to the question of whether or not Simpson Miller will say when she will turn around and walk away from political leadership.

“We believe that she will tell us all that she will be leaving by such and such time, and that a date for the leadership contest, should there be one, will be announced by her also. But, you never know. Maybe she will attend the meeting and say nothing about succession. We all just have to wait and see,” stated the official who asked not to be named.

Simpson Miller, 71, who has served the Jamaican Parliament for 41 years, and 10 as president of the PNP, announced at the NEC meeting in Kingston last year that she would not seek re-election as president of the PNP at the party’s annual conference, the organisation’s highest decision-making arm, when it convenes in September of this year. However, she did not say whether or not she would demit office as president before September.

There has been much anxiety, however, over the uncertainty of the changing of the guard, with reports surfacing that members of the PNP who serve as parliamentarians were getting jumpy over when the transition would be made.

The man most likely to succeed Simpson Miller, political economist Dr Peter Phillips has been going through the routine of practising to take the baton from Simpson Miller on a leg of the political relay that could have significant implications for the future of Jamaican political administration.

Phillips, seen by many as a political bright light, previously served as minister of finance and planning in the last PNP Administration which lost the 2016 General Election to the governing Jamaica Labour Party by a single seat, in a poll that shocked political watchers.

After mounting challenges for leadership of the PNP in 2006 when he went up against Simpson Miller, Dr Karl Blythe and Dr Omar Davies in a bid to succeed the president PJ Patterson, and again in 2008 against Simpson Miller, Phillips was given a seemingly easy passage to the party’s top post when engineer, banker and former Minister of National Security Peter Bunting decided that he would not mount a challenge. Bunting had earlier declared an interest to become party president.

Should Simpson Miller announce that she will leave office soon, that could be translated into a March departure, an impeccable source told the Sunday Observer, and a date would be announced for the presidential contest, which would be sometime after the end of the budget debate.

Simpson Miller’s contribution to the 2017-2018 Budget Debate, set for March 16 will likely be the last time that she will address the House of Representatives in that activity in her capacity as Opposition leader.

Her departure from the political scene will likely be followed by that of veteran parliamentarians and seniors of the PNP, among them Robert Pickersgill, the chairman, Dr Omar Davies, and Derrick Kellier, all of whom have held Cabinet portfolios over the years.

Jamaica’s first woman prime minister is the sitting MP for St Andrew South Western, the only constituency that she has represented since her elevation from a councillor in the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation to Gordon House in 1976, when she defeated the JLP’s Joe McPherson following a bloody general election campaign.

Simpson Miller’s opponent in that election would have been trade unionist Pearnel Charles, but the Michael Manley-led Administration at the time detained him, along with other prominent JLP officials, during the infamous state of emergency.

Simpson Miller’s victory broke the traditional domination by the JLP in the seat, which was held before by DC Tavares.