MARK Golding does not support the view by some, that Lisa Hanna’s past history of association with the rival Jamaica Labour Party should prevent her from competing for the top post in the People’s National Party.

There have been comments over the years that Hanna’s history of support for, and connection to the JLP would work against her and make it harder for her to seek to become president of the PNP, which she joined almost a decade and a half ago. All former presidents of the PNP— Norman Manley, Michael Manley, PJ Patterson, Portia Simpson Miller; and the outgoing one, Dr Peter Phillips — were party purists.

But Golding, who, like Hanna, is seeking to become the sixth president of the 82-year-old political organisation when delegates decide in a vote on November 7, defended his colleague’s right to make herself available for whatever post that she desires to run for, as long as she is qualified to do so based on the party’s book of rules that, among other things, still lists its political philosophy as democratic socialist.

“No, I don’t think it should matter,” was Golding’s swift response to a question posed to him by the Jamaica Observer on Thursday. “That’s because Lisa has been in the party for well over a decade and she has been a member of the Cabinet, she is a Member of Parliament and she is an authentic part of the family.

“So the fact that she may once have had connection to another party should not disqualify her from putting herself forward,” Golding insisted.

As for the people who held the view that for one to lead the PNP that individual should not have been a member or activist for another party, Golding said that while there may be some people who think like that, Hanna was “an important part of our family. I embrace her presence, I have a good relationship with her and I look forward to working with her to help rebuild the party,” especially if he is victorious in the November decider.

The election by around 4,000 delegates, who will exercise their right, based upon party constitutional stipulations, follows the decision by President Dr Phillips to demit office, after the PNP was humiliated by the JLP in the September 3 General Election. The JLP won 49 seats to the PNP’s 14.

Dr Phillips thus became the first PNP president not to have led the party to a general election victory since it contested Jamaica’s first of 18 elections after the people of this north Caribbean island earned the right to vote in 1944.

Golding is Member of Parliament for St Andrew Southern, considered among the top three safest seats for the PNP. He is also a former minister of justice, and senator.

Hanna, a member of the Jamaican legislature since 2007, served as minister of youth and culture from 2012 to 2016. She narrowly held on to the St Ann South Eastern seat, doing so by 31 votes in the September 3 election, having first won what was, by past election results, the most PNP-friendly seat in rural Jamaica.

It has been suggested to the Sunday Observer by several PNP supporters that while Hanna has become a member of the party, and served as MP and Cabinet minister, it would not be in the ‘spirit’ of the organisation for one who has worn the green outfit of the JLP and its affiliate, Generation 2000 (G2K), to get the chance to be president of the PNP, which exhibits orange as its primary colour.

“I don’t agree with it,” one Montego Bay-based member told the Sunday Observer on Tuesday. “I find it uncomfortable that she should lead the PNP when years ago she was around a street protest that involved several Labour Party and G2K people, who even blocked roads during a demonstration against petrol price against the PNP Government during the 90s,” the individual stated.

But, like Golding, another PNP supporter in the west, who backs the party financially, also saw nothing wrong with Hanna offering herself for party president and Opposition leader.

“It’s time to give the woman a break, man. She done with JLP politics long time. A PNP we a focus pon now. Me a support Mark Golding fi president, but we musn’t continue to beat up pon PNP people like dat, even if dem used go roun wid another party. We muss memba say (Sir Alexander) Bustamante was a member of the PNP before him go over to JLP.

Bustamante joined the PNP shortly after its launch in 1938, but left the party and went to form the JLP in 1943. With his superior trade union strength, Bustamante led the JLP to a comfortable win in the 1944 General Election, with 22 seats in the then 32 seat House of Representatives. The PNP won five – with a similar number going to Independent candidates.