Dear Editor,

Damion Crawford, who is said by some to be a future leader (whatever that is), is showing traits usually displayed by a misogynist and a racist. That’s essentially what I can deduce from his speech at the mass meeting in Portland Eastern on the weekend.

By going after Ann-Marie Vaz, declaring that her only qualification is her husband’s name and her skin colour, he was trying to pull a fast one on the people of Portland, by framing himself as a victim of “browning” supremacy.

Women, take note: One attack on one woman is an attack on all.

Vaz is by all means a competent Jamaican who has the interest of the people of Portland Eastern at heart. She isn’t campaigning on whether she is black, blue, pink or green. She is campaigning on a vision.

Furthermore, Crawford does not seem to possess any stick-to-itiveness and he has told us that if he loses he is done with politics. Seems he only wants to advance his selfish ambition. One of the things Crawford needs to remember is that he is a refugee who was summarily dumped from a seat he held for less than a full term. And one accusation levelled at him then was that he was arrogant and disrespectful. That was on full display on Sunday.

Crawford, while trying to cast himself as a victim of browning supremacy, also revealed a character flaw. Telling his own supporters and the wider public at large that he needs Portland Eastern to make a name for himself — not to serve the people of that constituency — he all but showed us that he doesn’t have the interest of the people at heart. He is in it for his own selfishness. If selfishness is a disease that guy got it good! He doesn’t understand that going into politics is about a servant-master relationship, where the politician is the servant and the people the master. Politics should never be about using people to further one’s selfish agenda.

In response to Vaz laying out her plan for tourism, Crawford laid out his qualifications in tourism. You know what is wrong with that? Of all those qualifications, it couldn’t bring the record number of tourist arrivals we are seeing now under Edmund Bartlett. So the qualifications he has certainly did not translate to the advancement of the tourism sector. He has no record in tourism that would qualify him to do anything he is talking about. He couldn’t do it while a state minister, with unlimited resources at his disposal. All he is trying to do is to trick the people of Portland.

Crawford is a glorified windbag who has been made to look like a superstar.

Fabian Lewis

tyronelewis272@gmail.com