De La Haye “come fi tek” East Central St Catherine
ST CATHERINE, Jamaica— “Comrades, wi come fi tek it,” newly installed People’s National Party (PNP) candidate for East Central St Catherine Dr Winston De La Haye told a large group of supporters who turned up at the Cedar Grove Academy, Gregory Park, St Catherine, last night.
In a colourful response to greetings from a number of party representatives, including Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips, PNP chairman Fitz Jackson, vice-president Phillip Paulwell, general secretary Julian Robinson and mayor of Portmore Leon Thomas, the former chief medical officer for Jamaica made his intentions clear.
“Hear the story now. Back inna di day when you go a Manning Cup (match) or Champs, and you go in and hold you seat beside you girl, you know how di ting set, a so we dweet. And you get up and you go hold a bag juice and a ‘nuts’ and come back an’ yuh see a man inna yuh seat, yuh sen’ a message say: Yow, tell di bredda deh say mi come fi mi seat,” he illustrated.
De La Haye said that after a call from PNP MP Horace Dalley, with whom he has had a close relationship since Dalley’s days as minister of health, followed by a call from Dr Phillips, he spent two hours with Senator KD Knight discussing politics, before making up his mind.
Since then, he said he has “done the math” and come to the conclusion that current MP, the ruling Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Alando Terrelonge, who is also Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, was lucky to have won the seat in 2016.
“When I see a man in a place win by 475 votes, within the limits of error, a lucky di man lucky And so it was clear to me that it was time to move forward,” De La Haye said.
“Comrades, I must tell you, I feel loved and certainly see it as a humbling experience to be here representing East Central St Catherine. Comrades we come fi tek it,” he added.
Dr De La Haye, who has served as head of several medical bodies, has studied addiction psychiatry as well as mental health and addiction and served as a member of the Cannabis Licensing Authority.
He is currently the deputy dean in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies Mona.
