THERE was celebration in the streets of sections of St Andrew North Central on Monday night after Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) General Secretary Dr Horace Chang all but confirmed that Senator Delano Seiveright would be the party’s candidate for the constituency in the next general election.

“We believe in Andrew [JLP leader and Prime Minister Andrew Holness] and we knew he would make the right decision and give us the man to ensure that the party retains this seat,” one JLP supporter told the Jamaica Observer while sipping what appeared to be rum and a chaser.

“The work start now and we [are] going to make Andrew and Uncle Sam [outgoing Member of Parliament Karl Samuda] proud by bringing home Delano with a massive margin,” added the supporter in the area of the constituency known as Commons.

In other JLP strongholds in the constituency residents also welcomed the decision which Chang indicated will be officially announced by next Monday.

Speaking on the Nationwide News Network programme Nationwide at Five on Monday, Chang announced that the party has now settled on candidates for the two seats which it had indicated were outstanding — St Andrew North Central and Manchester North Eastern — with an official announcement pending.

With reports surfacing since last week that former Ambassador to the United States Audrey Marks had accepted an invitation to enter representational politics in Manchester North Eastern to replace the veteran Audley Shaw, and Seiveright selected to end the contention over who should replace Samuda, Chang stopped just short of a confirmation.

“People on the ground will tell you who we have settled in the seats… and we will make the formal announcement Monday when we meet again at the officer level,” said Chang.

“We will make a formal announcement and give you a formal statement even before Monday, but we want to meet with all the stakeholders and ensure they [are] all on board. From all the reports that we are getting, people are on board, but we want to ensure that [is the case],” Chang said hours before Holness posted a picture on social media with Marks and Councillor Omar Miller (Craighead Division), who Shaw had initially identified as his replacement.

“We are doing our thing in a timely manner…We are not going to be hurried by current activities. We are not anxious about that,” added Chang as he argued that the JLP is proceeding at the pace it wants in its selection of candidates.

The leadership of the JLP found itself in a pickle in St Andrew North Central after Seiveright announced his intention to offer himself for the seat held by Samuda since 1980.

That announcement came days before the party was expected to announce that attorney-at-law Christian Tavares-Finson, son of Senate President Tom Tavares-Finson, had been the only one to apply to replace Samuda.

Seiveright’s announcement sparked a fire in the constituency, with scores of JLP supporters lining up behind him even as news leaked that Tavares-Finson was the favourite of several members of the top tier of the party.

And in what many political watchers viewed as a move to prevent Seiveright from continuing his quest to be the party’s standard-bearer in the constituency, Holness named him to the Senate and appointed him minister of state in the Ministry of Tourism.

But that did not stop the push by JLP workers supporting Seiveright, with a group from the constituency travelling to the party’s headquarters to demand clarity on who would be their next representative.

“If Mr Samuda is stepping down, we accept it and we respect the time he has spent in the constituency serving us. He served us gracefully and diligently. If he is stepping down we are asking Mr Holness to give us somebody we accept. We accept Delano, so give us Delano. Don’t give us who we don’t want.

“Samuda is our MP and we lift our hats off to him. He has done enough. He has been in politics from the 1980s,” one woman declared during a protest which she said was organised because they felt Tavares-Finson was going to get the green light to take over from Samuda.

As tensions rose in the constituency it was announced that Seiveright and Tavares-Finson had withdrawn their applications to represent the constituency so as to allow the leadership of the party time to settle the matter.

Since then the Observer has seen an internal party poll which showed Seiveright, who was elected deputy chairman of the constituency late last year, being more than 20 percentage points ahead of other contenders for the seat.

In the meantime, Marks brings extensive international experience to representational politics, having played a pivotal part in strengthening Jamaica-US relations during her diplomatic tenure.

She is also known for her success in the private sector as the founder of bill payment company Paymaster. However, there are concerns among Labourities in the constituency that her late entrance in the race, the lack of organisation over the past four to five years, and her lack of connection with the people could hurt the JLP in a seat it has held since 1993.

Marks is the first female named as a potential new candidate for the JLP going into the general election due this year,

In the 2020 General Election the party fielded 18 female candidates, including 11 newcomers. Fourteen of the JLP’s female candidates won their seat, including seven first-time MPs.