MEMBER of Parliament for Portland Western Daryl Vaz has urged Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader, Prime Minister Andrew Holness to hit the campaign trial now to pave the way for the party to win a third-consecutive term in Government.

“Put on yuh Clarks and come out of yuh office. Give the responsibilities to whoever you want to give and touch the road, because [People’s National Party (PNP) President] Mark Golding can’t match you if you touch the road,” Vaz said to loud cheers from JLP supporters at a St Catherine South Eastern constituency conference at Portmore HEART Academy on Sunday.

“My advice to my colleagues, but most importantly my advice to my prime minister: We have been in Government for eight years, we have done well, we have one year, and this year — despite the amount of work that we have done to change the lives of the people — if you want the third term…the only thing that you have left to do is clear your diary, put a team that can run the Government, and go back on the road, which is where you went in 2016,” added Vaz.

He argued that once Holness returns to the streets and “press some flesh and touch the people, it is all over”.

While describing himself as one of the best political strategists in the Caribbean, Vaz, who is also the minister of science, energy, telecommunications and transport, indicated that he is prepared to walk away from the Cabinet to hit the campaign trail for the general election due by September 2025.

Member of Parliament for Portland Western Daryl Vaz addressing the Jamaica Labour Party’s St Catherine South Eastern constituency conference at Portmore HEART Academy on Sunday.

“Prime Minister… I know that me and you never start on the same side of the road but now I can tell you that I am so committed to you to make sure that you finish the journey and put this country finally on the road to prosperity so that no one can interrupt… I am going to ask you for a leave of absence from the Cabinet to make sure I deliver to you the third term,” declared Vaz.

The political veteran said he is concerned because some of the actions he has seen from the PNP in recent times are ugly, frightening, and show a party prepared to do anything in the interest of getting State power.

“I am watching carefully what has been transpiring in the politics of Jamaica over the last few months. I am very despondent, because we should be going in the opposite direction. We are going back to where we [are] coming from in the ’70s, when we have fought to change that and to put us on a trajectory of a new political dynamic,” said Vaz.

He pointed out to the Labourities that he has contested six elections, starting in 1986 when he ran in a local government election in what was then the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation.

According to Vaz, since that time he has been targeted with lies and innuendos.

“There is nothing that they have not said about me, there is nothing that they have not tried to do to me, and I want to say to my prime minister today: Who God bless, no man curse.”

Vaz told the crowd that this Government, under the leadership of Holness, is without question the “best Government that this country has seen in history”.

He said that in the last eight years the JLP has turned the country around economically and socially, but it needs good political organisation and good political management to remain in Government.

“No matter how well we do in Government, if we don’t put in place policies to protect the vulnerable Jamaicans — which are the majority of Jamaicans — we have a problem,” he said.

“Prime Minister, I have some very simple advice, and let me qualify it by saying I have no ambitions. My only ambition at 60 years of age, and in the departure lounge… is to make sure that Andrew Holness gets a third term in the interest of this country,” said Vaz as he urged Labourities not to get caught in the political strategy that is now being played by their detractors.

“The strategy that is being played is a distraction, it is to take us away from the good that we are doing and get us into petty arguments about all sorts of things which mean nothing to the bigger picture,” said Vaz as he urged Labourities to avoid the ‘cass-cass’ and the cursing of the media.