IT appears the future of Stacey Knight was written in the stars the day she was born to political heavyweight KD Knight and his wife, esteemed public servant Pauline.

KD has made a name for himself in the courts and on the political stage with the People’s National Party (PNP), achieving adoration from Comrades usually reserved for the presidents of the party, while Pauline spent decades in service to Jamaica, rising to the rank of acting executive director of the Planning Institute of Jamaica.

Initially it seemed their only daughter, Stacey, would forge her own path and not follow in the footsteps of her parents, despite being introduced to politics at a young age and public service as a volunteer teacher in the Jamaica Movement for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL) programme while still in school.

“I am the daughter of Keith Desmond St Aubin Knight. I am his only child right now. I had one brother who is deceased. I went to… the great St Hugh’s Prep School, and then I went to the Immaculate Conception High School, the best high school in Jamaica. I also went to Wolmer’s girls’ school for a year of sixth form, and then I went to The University of the West Indies where I pursued a bachelor’s degree in computer science. I graduated from there with first class honours in computer science, and then I worked with a graphics company as a general manager,” Stacey Knight told the Jamaica Observer as she introduced herself.

Pulled by a love for teaching she decided that she wanted to study education and pursued a Master of Arts in Educational Psychology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

“It was a great experience learning about how people learn… how the human mind works and what motivates and gets some people to learn, and what happens when people can’t learn in the normal ways that others learn — people with special needs,” said Knight.

On her return to Jamaica, Knight lectured at some of the island’s top universities and was commended repeatedly for her work in the classroom teaching information technology, computer science and computer studies.

But fate intervened, and she decided that she had plateaued as a lecturer and so followed her father’s footsteps into the field of law. Having read for a law degree at University of London, Kinght moved to Norman Manley Law School and was called to the Bar more than 12 years ago.

She joined her father in his law firm Knight, Junor and Samuels, where she is now the most senior associate. But fate was not done with her yet and she is now trodding the path of her father with her entry into representational politics for the PNP in St Andrew North Eastern in the next general election.

“You hear what we say, time come? Time come for Stacey Knight to enter Parliament. It wasn’t the time before. I’m a mother of two children and I was more focused on raising my children to a certain level, and they are at the stage now where their mother being in representational politics doesn’t take as much from them as it would have if they were in their infancy,” said Knight as she admitted that maybe she was running from her destiny, but argued that her life before politics has shaped her into what she needs to be for the next leg of the journey.

“Who I am now is a conglomerate. It’s the coming together of all the things that I’ve studied and all the things that I’ve done in my life, and if I didn’t study computer science and educational psychology I wouldn’t be as fit for the role I’m stepping into now,” argued Knight.

The PNP’s Stacey Knight is ready to represent the people of St Andrew North Eastern in the next general election. (Photos: Naphtali Junior)

She is taking on a constituency which the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Delroy Chuck has held since 1997, with the PNP’s lone victory in the seat way back in 1993 when Karlene Kirlew-Robertson secured victory.

But that is no issue for Knight who is confident that she will enjoy similar success to the woman she calls “Auntie Karlene”.

According to Knight, she has worked behind the scenes in the constituency for more than 12 years, serving as cluster manager, doing canvassing and the “grunt” work for the PNP until many of her colleagues urged her to run as they argued that the party needs a candidate who will beat the incumbent and that she is the one to do it.

“I reflected, introspected, and eventually came to the right decision — as you said, running from destiny. Well, the destiny has caught up with me.

“I have worked as the legal representative for [PNP] candidates in that constituency as well, in a couple of elections, and I have seen time and again the candidates being unsuccessful. And the last time, I said, was going to be the last time. [I believe] that it’s time that a candidate takes the role seriously enough and that the party take the role seriously enough, and I just know that I am that candidate,” added Knight.

The outspoken attorney argued that while the JLP has won St Andrew North Eastern in several elections, the constituency is not one which can be considered a safe seat for that party.

“It is no West Kingston. It is not a garrison. There are free-thinking people there who, perhaps some of them… may believe that it’s a foregone conclusion, and so many people don’t even participate in the election because they believe it’s a foregone conclusion,” said Knight as she noted that in 2020 fewer than 39 per cent of the registered voters cast their ballots in the seat.

Now the woman whose political mentors include her father, former prime ministers PJ Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller, former PNP President Dr Peter Phillips, and current PNP President Mark Golding, among others, believes she has the formula to end the JLP’s stranglehold on the constituency as part of her effort to build Jamaica.

“Listen, this is not something that just hurry come up. I tell you, it’s a passion… it is a calling. And as I tell you, I live there, I have studied there, I have been working, [and] when I say studied, I mean studied the place and the people.

“When I told the People’s National Party leadership that I wanted to be the representative for St Andrew North Eastern, at first it was, ‘Yay, great.’ They are happy to have a candidate, you know, a good candidate. And then I guess some people got to thinking and the leadership approached me and offered me other seats. They offered me what they called more winnable seats,” said Knight.

According to Knight, one of the seats she was offered is in St Elizabeth where she has family ties and her law firm has an office, but she refused.

“It didn’t take me long to think about it and to know that the calling that I have is not just a call to become an MP. I don’t just want to become an MP, I want to represent the people of St Andrew North Eastern. I feel that they are my people… I’m close to those people. It’s my family, and what I have seen is 28 years of neglect, lack of proper representation, and that is what I want to fix.

“I am not just looking at paths to Gordon House, some easy path,” declared Knight who more than one year ago told Chuck that one day she would challenge him and defeat him.

Whatever date is selected for Jamaicans to next return to the polls, that will be Stacey Knight’s date with destiny.