Chairman of the People’s National Party (PNP), Dr Angela Brown-Burke, says she is disgusted at “the repulsive and racially charged comments” levied against PNP Leader Mark Golding by Everald Warmington over the weekend.

Speaking at a St Catherine North Eastern constituency conference on Sunday, Warmington, a member of parliament for the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), reportedly asserted that Opposition Leader Mark Golding will never become prime minister of Jamaica because of his skin colour.

In a statement on Thursday, Burke said Warmington’s comments were “despicable and in poor taste.”

“The comments are offensive to Mr Golding and all Jamaicans, but also insult our motto: ‘Out of Many, One People’,” Brown-Burke stated.

“Mr Warmington’s comments are as incorrect as they are offensive, as Mr Golding hails from a family that exemplifies the true meaning of service over self. His father, Sir John Golding, was integral to Jamaica’s recovery from the polio epidemic in the 1950s. He established the Mona Rehab Centre (renamed the Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Center), the Hope Valley Experimental School, and other institutions catering to the needs of persons living with disabilities. Today, Mr Mark Golding chairs the Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Center and continues his father’s outstanding legacy. Few families can claim a legacy so deeply cemented in service to Jamaica’s most vulnerable,” she shared.

Brown-Burke highlighted that Golding was born in Jamaica at the University Hospital of the West Indies and that his nationality and heritage are of unquestionable authenticity.

“The fact that Mr Warmington and JLP apologists would seek to use MP Golding’s skin colour to incite hate against him is a most repulsive political stunt which must be rebuffed by society at large,” she added.

The chairman said she hopes that Prime Minister Andrew Holness and JLP general secretary Horace Chang will distance the political party from Warmington’s statements.

“Although Jamaica has come to expect very little from Mr Warmington with respect to decency and character, we are sickened by this latest display, and the public is even more turned off from the political process,” said Brown-Burke.

She said the matter is receiving attention from the Political Ombudsman.

On Wednesday, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) says it was disappointed with what it called “racially divisive” comments made by Everald Warmington.

READ: PSOJ slams Warmington’s ‘racially divisive’ comments on Golding