WITH all prospective Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) candidates now in place in Manchester ahead of the next general election, the party’s Deputy Leader Michael Stern is boldly predicting a total takeover of the parish once considered a People’s National Party (PNP) fortress.

The JLP currently controls three of the four constituencies — Manchester Central, Manchester Southern, and Manchester North Eastern. Two of the three, Manchester Central and Southern, were long-standing PNP bastions dating back to 1989. The JLP broke that streak when they won both seats in the 2020 General Election.

Stern said the gains have emboldened the party, and it is now eyeing Manchester North Western — the lone seat held by the PNP — as the final prize in what he hopes will be an unprecedented clean sweep in the parish.

“All the seats are now filled, and we are now pursuing the organisational fine-tuning. What we are seeing is that as we fill these vacancies the workers are getting more excited and, therefore, the motivation is up, so where it used to be lukewarm when you didn’t have the candidates in place and everybody [was in a] wait-and-see attitude at the early part of the year… as we fill the seats the JLP has been rising.

“You would have to say that we have gone through that malaise period now, and the seats are in a more competitive state. We are far better at winning all seats than we were before,” said Stern.

A cloud of uncertainty loomed over Manchester North Eastern following the announcement that Audley Shaw, the JLP’s standard-bearer for the constituency since winning the 1997 General Election, would be stepping away from representational politics. However, last month, the JLP tapped former ambassador to the United States, Senator Audrey Marks, as his replacement.

The party has also faced internal turbulence in Manchester Southern with its sitting Member of Parliament Robert Chin.

Chin made headlines in the September 2020 General Election when he delivered a surprise victory over the PNP’s Michael Stewart, winning by 890 votes. However, his post-election performance drew criticisms from within the party, and confidence in his leadership began to erode. The JLP subsequently conducted an internal election to determine his political future and Chin was challenged by businessmen Ian Ives and Adion Peart. Results shared with the Jamaica Observer showed Ives emerging as the frontrunner with 221 votes, compared to Chin’s 145. Peart received 34 votes.

Ives was then listed as the JLP’s aspirant for Manchester Southern. He is expected to go up against the PNP’s Peter Bunting who moved to that seat after losing Manchester Central to then political newcomer Rhoda Moy Crawford in the 2020 General election.

“We have had some issues in the south, which we went through a proper process of ensuring that the workers have a say in the direction of that seat, and they did have their wish. We carefully managed it over the period since January and before, and it’s now at a point where the new candidate is more or less being accepted by the voters,” said Stern.

“The workers would have been doing their part by accepting him, and now he’s out in the field, house to house. He’s from the constituency, he’s a businessman — Mr Ian Ives — and he’s well accepted. He would have more strength in Grove Town and Alligator Pond, Porus, which is with us, and Newport is coming very nicely,” Stern told the Sunday Observer.

“Newport is where the strength of the PNP is, but we are picking up nicely in that division. We’re ahead because of the fact that [Ives] is from the [division] and all the workers overwhelmingly voted him in, and that they wanted him. It takes away all the negatives that they had about Mr Chin, so that makes it better for us going into the election,” he added.

The deputy leader said Marks has also been accepted by residents in Manchester North Eastern and, despite her late start, is in a good position to retain the seat for the party. She is set to go up against PNP aspirant Valenton “Val” Wint.

“While she needs more time to get to know the voters, she has been overwhelmingly accepted by the people, and we feel that all the people wanted was for us to have settled on who is going to move forward. We have, so we think we have a great candidate who is well accepted by the people, and she is now starting to put on her boots and walking the constituency, which would make her even more accepted,” Stern insisted.

“Right now, I can tell you, when you don’t have a candidate in a seat the other side will say, ‘Oh, we are ahead,’ but let me tell you, if you check it out, now we are ahead because the excitement that has been brought [with] just one candidate coming in there — the whole JLP base has woken up. Even areas that we had problems during the parish council election have come out heavy in terms of support for her, so we think that the north-east will be back in the column of JLP,” he said confidently.

Manchester North Eastern comprises three divisions: Craighead, Christiana, and Walderston. In the 2024 local government elections, the JLP secured the Craighead division, but the PNP won Christiana and Walderston.

Stern further noted that the JLP’s Crawford, who had a historic victory in Manchester Central in the 2020 General Election ending the PNP’s more than 30-year run in the constituency, is working hard to retain her seat.

Crawford, a political neophyte at the time, secured 8,140 votes to Bunting’s 6,989 votes. Crawford is expected to defend her seat against PNP aspirant Donovan Mitchell in the next election.

“Rhoda has been working hard. She has done more roads in Manchester Central than any other Member of Parliament (MP); not one MP can match her. The major roads that need to be done now, the Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) programme is coming on, and all of them are slated to go under the SPARK programme, so I think the people have seen her work,” said Stern.

Under the SPARK programme, the Government is rehabilitating Jamaica’s deteriorating road network.

“Yes, she got some knock in the parish council election by not winning any of the parish council seats she had won — she lost it because of the death of a councillor and then we had made some choices in there which we have to revisit — but she’s getting her thing together in terms of her organisation. She’s strengthening her management team in there, and I think that she’ll do better than the parish council results in terms of her organisation,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“She has more acceptance among the voters than maybe the councillors did, so she’s running on her performance and I think that is going to carry her through,” added Stern.

Manchester Central has four divisions — Bellefield, Royal Flat, Mandeville, and Knockpatrick — and the PNP won them all in the 2024 Local Government Elections.

Turning to Manchester North Western, the JLP deputy leader said the party is seeking to create history in the constituency that has been a PNP stronghold since 1989. The seat is currently held by the PNP’s Mikael Phillips, who won the constituency with 5,617 votes in the 2020 General Election. Phillips went up against the JLP’s Damion Young, who received 4,885 votes.

Young is again set to face off with Phillips in the next general election.

Stern noted that in the 2020 General Election Young was put up as a last-minute candidate and did not have time to cement his roots in the constituency, but things are different now.

“He has never left the seat. He has trained himself, he has gotten hundreds and maybe up to thousands of youths jobs in there; he has stayed connected with all the groups inside there, all the stakeholders, and everybody has been rallying around him in this election,” declared Stern.

“I’m very impressed with him. For a seat that we have never won, what we are doing in there is to show the PNP that we can compete even in your backyard. Right in your stronghold, we can compete and we are doing that, so I think that we stand a very good chance of bringing home north-west this time,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Stern also sought to rubbish a recent claim by PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell that the JLP took home some of the party’s strongholds in 2020 because PNP voters did not turn out to vote. He said the victories of Chin and Crawford in their respective constituencies were indicators that voters were satisfied with JLP leadership.

“A lot of people forget the work we did during the COVID-19 pandemic… The people were satisfied with the way we saved lives and the way we went about providing the service, and how we gave them cash care and all of that. People were satisfied, and that’s why even the PNP, who they say stay home, yeah, they stay home because they’re satisfied. They don’t want to vote against the party who they want to put in, they just stayed back,” reasoned Stern.

“I will tell you this, if they think that some of them are not thinking the same right now, they’re making a sad mistake,” he added.

Stern said he sees Manchester in a different light and will not be daunted by anyone who doubts his prediction.

“The last time when I gave my synopsis as to seat by seat in the last election, I was being chastised by many media houses about my dream, my pie in the sky dream of getting rid of Bunting and all of them. I didn’t say I want to get rid of anybody. I said that Mr Bunting couldn’t beat Rhoda and I gave out all the seats in the last election and everybody criticised me… I said what I said then and I was perfect. In all the seats I counted, I was perfect,” insisted Stern.

He said for the past three years the JLP had not been in campaign mode, except for the local government elections because it had projects to complete and deadlines to meet, but the party is now in full campaign mode.

The JLP deputy leader noted that a third-consecutive term is always harder to win because of the fatigue of a double term and people growing tired of voting for the same person, but the JLP is strong and ready to take on the next general election when announced.

Manchester Southern MP Robert Chin (left) and businessman Ian Ives.

Damion Young, JLP aspirant for Manchester North Western.

The table shows a breakdown of the four constituencies in Manchester and the number of votes won by the Jamaica Labour Party and the People’s National Party in the 2016 and 2020 general elections.

Rhoda Moy Crawford, the incumbent Member of Parliament for Manchester Central. Crawford won the PNP stronghold in a historic victory for the JLP in the 2020 General Election.

Jamaica Labour Party Deputy Leader Michael Stern is predicting a clean sweep for the political party in Manchester in the next general election.