MANCHESTER, Jamaica — The Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Rhoda Moy Crawford and Robert Chin created history yesterday as they unseated their opponents in what had been considered safe seats for the People’s National Party (PNP).

“Our strategy was very clear. From early out we did an analysis of all polling divisions in all four divisions of the constituency. We looked at our strongest polling divisions, our weakest polling divisions and our marginal polling divisions. We knew that the Bellefield division had always been a challenge for the JLP…. We were deliberate in being present [there],” Crawford told OBSERVER ONLINE by telephone today.

She attributed her victory to the support of past JLP candidates and her team.

“I engaged former JLP candidates. We looked at their strengths [to see] what they did right, and we capitalised on that… We looked at the mistakes they made and were sure to avoid the mistakes,” Crawford said.

Prior to yesterday’s defeat of two former PNP Members of Parliament, Peter Bunting and Michael Stewart, the PNP held three of four seats in Manchester.

Crawford led her campaign with the slogan ‘Daughter of the Soil’ to unseat Bunting — a three-term MP and PNP heavyweight— by 985 votes following the preliminary count.

In the neighbouring Manchester Southern constituency, Robert Chin, who was a late replacement as standard bearer, unseated Stewart by 894 votes.

Chin shattered the PNP’s consecutive hold of Manchester Southern for over three decades.

“Words cannot express the feeling [of victory] …. I was going for a bigger margin; however, the rains of the day set back the voter turnout, but I am extremely happy for the victory. This is not my victory; it is for the people of Southern Manchester. The strategy going in was really very simple, because we had an organisation in place and the team delivered,” Chin told journalists on Friday.

The JLP has flipped the script on the PNP with the latter left holding onto one constituency— Manchester North Western— retained by Mikael Phillips.