‘2020 was a fluke’: Campbell dares Holness to call general election
KINGSTON, Jamaica – People’s National Party (PNP) General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell is daring Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness to call the general elections, dismissing the 2020 polls in which the PNP lost by a landslide as a “fluke”.
Campbell made the remarks at the Springfield annual divisional conference at Vauxhall High School in Kingston on Saturday night.
The PNP general secretary taunted Holness for reportedly stating at a recent Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) conference that he was not yet ready to call the election, which is constitutionally due this year.
“He’s waiting until he’s sure he’s going to win to call the election… So what do you think we’re going to do? Stop work? We are going to stand the ground. We’re going to continue training our workers and organising,” Campbell said. “So him can run, but him can’t hide because whenever him call that election, they’re going to get a beating.Him must get a beating.”
He said the last general election in 2020, when the PNP suffered a 14-49 seat defeat at the hands of the Holness-led JLP, was a “fluke” due to it being held during the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“2020 was a fluke. 2020 was because they called the election during COVID and people don’t come out and all of them things. And they made that get to their heads,” Campbell said.
“So we are asking for a rematch. We want him to call the election because we are not going forward with this level of corruption that is taking place in the country,” he added.
In the meantime, citing alleged corruption in the government, Campbell said Jamaica was at “risk”.
“We are at a critical point in our country’s history. We are at a point where I believe that the Jamaica that we’ve come to know and love is at risk based on how this government is operating,” Campbell said.
“And when we come out and talk, they have some persons that they’re paying in social media. They have some media houses that are on their side. And they have some computer generated things that we call bots that they’re using. And it tries to change the perception of what is out there,” he said.
