WITH Jamaicans expected to go to the polls soon, People’s National Party (PNP) General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell says Comrades are revved up and energised to take back the 17 constituencies they lost to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) since 2016.

And Campbell says the PNP is even aiming for more.

After the polls closed in the 2020 General Election, the PNP lost 15 constituencies that it had won in the 2016 poll to the JLP. Those seats were St Ann North Western, Manchester Central, Westmoreland Western, Westmoreland Eastern, Westmoreland Central, St Catherine South Eastern, Kingston Central, St Thomas Eastern, Trelawny Northern, Hanover Western, St Elizabeth North Eastern, Manchester Southern, Clarendon North Western, Clarendon Northern, and St James Southern.

In a 2017 by-election, PNP newcomer Dr Shane Alexis lost St Mary South Eastern to the JLP’s Norman Dunn, who had a narrow five-vote loss in the 2016 parliamentary elections to the PNP’s Dr Winston Green.

Green died just over a year after retaining the St Mary South Eastern seat, triggering the need for the by-election.

The party also lost Portland Eastern in a 2019 by-election when the JLP’s Ann-Marie Vaz defeated Damion Crawford in the bid to fill the vacancy created by the murder of the PNP’s Dr Lynvale Bloomfield less than a year after he was elected.

Campbell — who was defeated by the JLP’s Krystal Lee in St Ann North Western — told the Jamaica Observer that the 2020 results were a bombshell because the PNP had held many of the seats for more than 30 years.

“It was disappointing and it was a shocker when we looked at some of the constituencies that we probably didn’t expect that we would ever lose. The party was at a low, but the good thing is that we have rebounded and we have made improvements. The last time we contested was the parish council [elections in 2024], which showed that the base of the party is back and that the party is alive and well,” the general secretary said.

The final count of the 2024 local government election shows that the JLP won control of seven local authorities, while the PNP won six. There was a tie in Kingston and St Andrew. However, because the PNP got the most votes it won the right to appoint the mayor.

Campbell is confident that the result of the local government poll is an indication to the PNP that it has regained ground in some of the divisions it lost to the JLP in 2020.

“In terms of what we would have done since that time, we had to go back to the drawing board and to re-look at what we’re doing and rebuild the organisation in the constituencies, and just rebuild the party nationally as well,” he said.

“I think we have succeeded in doing so, because we’ve got all hands on deck. Several persons have played a role, some more so than others, but I think we have a united, full, all-hands-on-deck approach, which is what has caused us to be in a very competitive position now where we’re still pulling ahead, just weeks before the announcement of the election,” Campbell told the Sunday Observer.

He expressed confidence that the PNP will win all 17 seats it lost, and more, in the next general election.

According to Campbell, the JLP won some seats in 2020 because PNP supporters did not turn out in their numbers to vote, but this time things will be different.

“Time come!” declared Campbell in a message to JLP representatives occupying the 17 seats.

“I don’t think they [the current representatives for the 17 seats] realise that they polled fewer votes than the candidate that ran for the JLP and lost in 2016. They did not win because they polled more votes than the PNP would have [in winning] the seat in 2016. They won because the PNP support did not come out.

“I think it was only Homer Davis [Member of Parliament for St James Southern] that did better than what the PNP Member of Parliament would have gotten in 2016 — all of the others would have gotten less votes than what the JLP counterpart did and what the PNP Member of Parliament would have won in 2016,” argued Campbell.

“The level of complacency and arrogance that they displayed for the term and at the latter end of the campaign, they’re now realising that they’re not as popular and viable in the constituencies, and so I think all of those will go back to the PNP and I think we’ll take some additional ones,” the PNP general secretary insisted.

Campbell said this time around, the Comrades are running a scientific and data-driven campaign, and the data show that most of the seats are winnable when looking at how the current JLP representative stacks up against the PNP’s candidate. While he did not state the other seats that the party will be targeting, he said the data show these seats are also winnable.

“We do polling to check where constituencies are, we do our audits of the constituencies, we do our organising, we check to see the viability and winnability of the constituencies. The ones that we consider to be most viable would be the ones that we prioritise as the ones most likely to win,” he said.

Campbell said, too, that the party is aware of the shortcomings it had in the 2016 General Election.

He said the leadership of the PNP has listened to its supporters and others and has acted.

“We haven’t gone about this campaign just trying to put forward what we’re going to do off the top of our brains. We’ve listened, we’ve had the different sessions, had the focus groups, we’ve listened to our core supporters, we’ve listened to undecided persons, to what they want us to do, how they want the country to transform.

“They’ve said to us that they want a better quality of life, they want to be able to live in Jamaica and enjoy Jamaica because it’s a beautiful country, but they currently believe that we have two Jamaicas — one for those who are affluent and the next one for those who are living hand to mouth — and so they want a better quality of life and we have listened to that,” said Campbell.

“We have listened to them in selecting our candidates. We made sure that we included opinion polls as well, so we could see how the candidate is, and it’s not just the delegates alone that would have a say but that the delegates would make a choice on candidates that are viable and aspirants that are viable, so that we end up with a viable candidate.

“We have consulted, we have listened to them and we are ready to work together to achieve a better future — a better life for the people of Jamaica,” he added.

The general secretary noted that it has been a long campaign season, and charged that this is the closest Jamaica has come to a general election deadline in years, but the fire is still burning within the party.

“I think we have paced ourselves appropriately, and now we’re at a point where we’re ready to sprint to the finish line,” said Campbell.