JAMAICA Labour Party (JLP) General Secretary Dr Horace Chang says the ruling party is expecting a gigantic crowd at the National Arena today for its 76th annual conference.

“Constitutionally, a general election will be held within the next 14 months, and so we are getting the machinery ready for the event any time after this when it is called,” Dr Chang told the Jamaica Observer on Friday.

He said that the preparations will begin with today’s speech by party Leader and Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Holness will highlight the Government’s performance since February, 2016, when it clipped the People’s National Party (PNP) by a single seat, then went on to grab two “safe” rural constituencies from the Opposition party in by-elections, extending the lead.

The massive swing away from the PNP in the two by-elections increased confidence in the JLP that it could become the first of the two parties to win back-to-back general elections since 2007, and end the current single term trend which surprised Holness in 2011 and even Portia Simpson Miller in 2016.

The JLP Government seemed quite comfortable with its current five-seat majority since 2018.

However, the PNP seems to have settled for its current leader, the veteran Dr Peter Phillips, and a partisan battle is already on, although the Opposition remains dogged by the unsuccessful challenge on Phillips’ leadership which has left some open wounds.

But, as far as Dr Chang is concerned, the JLP massive is again rallying, the party is battle ready and the test of that swagger will be today’s turnout of green-clad supporters.

But sustaining the bounce will also depend on how well the main speakers are able to capture the attention and the imagination of the crowd, which is expected to include hundreds of young Jamaican, many of whom are linked to the party’s youth arms — Young Jamaica and Generation 2000.

Main speakers, such as Prime Minister Holness, and other top ranking MPs including Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries Audley Shaw; Chairman Robert Montague, Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke; House Leader Karl Samuda; the ‘First Lady’ of the party, Olivia “Babsy” Grange; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Johnson Smith and virtual conference chairman for life, Desmond McKenzie, will be challenged to hold the crowd’s attention for the approximately six hours that the meeting is expected to last.

Chang, who is also the minister of national security, has no doubt that it will a huge success, despite the corruption aroma, the questions about Jamaica’s ability to balance its relationships with rivals the United States and China, the high level of murders and the failure to bring GDP growth closer to the projected five per cent in four years.

Labourites are expected to enjoy themselves, with background music that send messages like “Stand Up Jamaica When You Hear the Bell” and the addictive “Roll Call”, blended with the antics of speakers like Shaw, the patrician approach of Dr Clarke or work floor narrative of affiliate union boss Senator Kavan Gayle, president of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union.

“The workers are energised and recharged and after the conference they will be ready for the next 14 months of campaigning,” Chang boasted.

Special guest at the conference will be the 73-year-old Prime Minister of Grenada, Dr Keith Mitchell, whose rousing tribute to the late Jamaican Prime Minister and JLP leader Edward Seaga, a highlight of Seaga’s funeral service in Kingston in June, still rings a bell among the Labourites.

A mathematician by training, Mitchell returned to Grenada in 1984, the year after the invasion which ended the socialist experiment by the Maurice Bishop-led New Jewel Movement and praised Seaga’s support for the USbacked invasion.

His party, the New National Party, has won all 15 seats in three separate elections since, and he has the record for lasting the longest as Prime Minister in a single term — 19 consecutive years.

The conference is scheduled to start at 10 am, with the reports from the various officers, affiliates and committees, to be followed by a public session scheduled to last from noon to 3:00 pm.