People’s National Party (PNP) president Mark Golding says the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has been ‘shaken up’ by a recent public opinion poll which shows that his party is in a virtual dead heat with the JLP.

“It shake dem up Comrades, it shake dem up,” said Golding of the PNP-commissioned Don Anderson poll.

He was speaking at a party meeting in Nannyville, St Andrew on Thursday, following Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ contribution to the 2023/2024 Budget Debate in Parliament.

The Don Anderson poll showed that 28.1 per cent of voters favoured the PNP compared to 27.9 per cent favouring the JLP, a statistical dead heat. However, Golding suggested that the momentum is with the PNP.

“All I can see is just that Andrew Holness and the labour party, fi dem ting just ah come down, down, down, down, and the PNP just ah guh up, up, up, up,” said Golding to shouts of approval from the party faithfuls.

While admitting that the poll is not all favourable to the PNP – Golding’s negative rating increased by 10 percentage points – he indicated that the “overall result” is a reason for optimism within the party.

He also made fun of the audio issues which interrupted Holness’ budget presentation while refuting claims from some people that the PNP had a hand in the mic troubles.

“The prime minister come to parliament… is like as him start talk, God just seh ‘no, cut the mic because we can’t deal with that’,” Golding said to laughter from supporters.

“And of course the Labourite dem ah seh we ah sabotage the ting, dem suh damn fool… everything happen dem seh ah we… dem paranoid,” he added.

Holness was forced to stop his speech for more than an hour as officials scrambled to address the matter.

READ: Holness’ Budget presentation interrupted by mic malfunction