A fired-up Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness, on Sunday expressed confidence that he will lead his party to a third-consecutive term in Government as he named September 3 as the date for the island’s 19th general election.

The election will be held exactly five years to the date when Holness and the JLP won by a landslide in the 2020 General Election.

Nomination day will be Monday, August 18.

Although Holness did not speak to the significance of the date, September 3 has been good for the JLP as it was on that date in 2007 that Bruce Golding defeated Portia Simpson Miller to become Jamaica’s eighth prime minister. It was also on that date in 2020 that Holness won his second mandate.

Holness announced the much-anticipated date before thousands of flag-waving, bell-ringing, and horn-blowing party supporters in Half-Way Tree square, St Andrew.

Oozing confidence, the prime minister declared the crowd that crammed into the St Andrew capital to be bigger than the 2016 crowd he addressed at the same venue when he was Opposition leader. There were no mass gatherings to announce the election date in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Sunday night Holness said the large crowd was proof that the momentum is with the JLP, before reeling off a long list of successes over his two terms as head of Government, and a longer list of promises if he is given the mandate for a third time.

This Jamaica Labour Party supporter is in high spirits, ringing a bell at the party’s mass rally in Half-Way-Tree, St Andrew on Sunday. The bell is the ruling party’s symbol. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)

Holness also announced that local government by-elections will be held in the Chancery Hall, Olympic Gardens, Seiveright Gardens and Denham Town divisions on the same date as the general election.

“I don’t need to tell you that this is the best-performing Government in the history of Jamaica,” he boasted, and added that his Administration is the “strongest, most active, and most strategic Government ever”.

He noted that the Government took Jamaica through the COVID-19 pandemic, Hurricane Beryl, several tropical storms, among other obstacles, “And we never missed a beat.”

History beckons as Holness seeks to do what no other JLP leader has managed — lead the party to three straight terms. He’s banking on the JLP’s list of “achievements” in Government, compiled in a booklet and distributed islandwide by an army of volunteers on July 30. Holness said a thousand achievements could have been listed.

For the People’s National Party (PNP) its president, Opposition Leader Mark Golding, will be going all out to ensure the party does not suffer the ignominy of a third-straight election defeat — something it has never experienced in its almost 87 years of existence.

The PNP has the record of four consecutive general election victories, beginning with Michael Manley’s comeback win in 1989. After Manley demitted office in 1992, due to ill health, the baton was passed to PJ Patterson who chalked up landslide victories in 1993 and 1997; he also won in 2002, but by a much smaller margin.

Golding, who won the presidency of the PNP in 2020 over Lisa Hanna, the outgoing Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, is looking to become Jamaica’s 10th prime minister.

He is hoping that his promises for 50,000 affordable houses, land reform, a $1-billion Disability Fund, and plans for education including the first in a family to attend university being granted a full scholarship, among others, will put the PNP over the top.

After guiding the JLP to a narrow, one-seat victory over the PNP in 2016 Holness followed up with a shellacking of the PNP in 2010, in an election held in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. After the final vote was counted the JLP had won 49 seats to the PNP’s 14.

Political watchers have said the coming election is the most consequential in recent times, with the JLP declaring that the third term will be the “people’s term”. The party argues that it has laid the foundation for significant growth that will redound to the benefit of all.

The PNP has countered, with Golding often accusing members of the JLP of enriching themselves and their cronies while ripping off the country.

On Sunday Holness repeated that he and the JLP have worked hard for what they have achieved.

“That’s our work ethic,” he said.

He also ripped into the PNP, declaring that the party has members in Parliament who got rich on the backs of taxpayers during the high interest rate regime of the 1990s, and from the meltdown of the financial sector.

“Poor people never have money to lend to Government,” Holness said, pointing out that that was an avenue used by members of the PNP to make money.

The PNP remains confident after its strong showing in the 2024 Local Government Elections, and for months it has been clamouring for a general election date with its campaign slogan ‘Time Come’.

The date is now set and Jamaicans will, in just 23 days, determine whether Holness will return to Jamaica House as prime minister, or if the country will embrace a new head of Government in Golding.

Jamaica Labour Party supporters gather on Sunday for the party’s mass rally in Half-Way-Tree, St Andrew, where Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness announced that Jamaicans will vote in general elections on September 3, 2025. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)