AS Dr Alfred Dawes reflected on his hard-fought victory in St Catherine South Eastern, the Member of Parliament-elect says it would not have been possible without efforts to heal divisions and foster forgiveness to form a united front against the Jamaica Labour Party’s Robert Miller.

“We started off this campaign very divided. It was a bitter internal race that left some deep wounds, and a primary focus of the campaign was to heal those divisions while, at the same time, connecting with the people…Healing the divisions required my personal growth as a man; it meant that I had to learn forgiveness. It [also] meant I had to teach people about forgiveness and its importance.

“It meant reaching out, repeatedly, when you’re rebuffed. It meant teaching my supporters to accept those who came on board late, that they were just as integral a part of the team and we should forget about the past and work together…The campaign, essentially, became a campaign of love, and that is what basically crafted our message in reaching the constituents.

“We had to heal internally first, and in so doing, we all grew stronger together, and we realised the value of love,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

After a heated internal election, Dawes was appointed the PNP’s standard-bearer for the constituency by the party’s leadership, edging out Portmore Deputy Mayor Alrick Campbell. Party delegates voiced strong opposition to Dawes, and tension grew among supporters in the St Catherine South Eastern constituency. Dawes was reportedly issued death threats, and a section of his constituency office was destroyed by fire.

The Member of Parliament-elect shared that he also faced heavy pushback from the outgoing MP Miller but, he said, ultimately, he’s happy that love prevailed.

“People came out for us because of the love that they saw we gave them before, and because they loved what we represented and what we wanted to do. That is what eventually triumphed in the end; so we are, I would say, a very blessed constituency now. Having gone through those difficult days…we understand the value of love, family, and togetherness, and that is what we’re going to use now to build out the constituency and grow,” he said.

A preliminary count of the votes showed that Dawes received 7,754 votes to the outgoing MP’s 7,187 votes. Dawes said his victory is bittersweet, as his party lost the general election, gaining 29 seats to the JLP’s 34 in the preliminary count. Kaycian Radcliffe of the Jamaica Progressive Party, who polled 64 votes, also contested the seat.

As the final count continues post-general election, the JLP has picked up another seat — Kingston Central — bringing the new seat allocation to 35 in favour of the Andrew Holness-led JLP and 28 for the PNP.

Dawes also said that the close margin of victory in his constituency was not one his team had anticipated, alleging that there was “a lot of voter suppression” due to “the significant money dump that took place in the constituency before the election and on election day”.

“That really led to our numbers falling off, but as I said, enough people believed in us…enough people came out, and that is why we had a good result and we ended up with a comfortable margin of victory,” he reasoned.

Dawes said, at the end of the day, the results of the election proved that “love is stronger than money”, and that is what he will use to guide his campaign forward.

The political neophyte described himself as a jovial individual who always aspires to be his authentic self, and that is what he displayed on the campaign trail. He shared that while he received advice from multiple sources on the image to present to his constituents and the wider Jamaica, he ultimately decided to use social media to connect with people and be himself.

“I’m somebody who is always cracking jokes. I’m always teasing people, and so when I was in high school and people used to make jokes about me and bully me, I realised that they could not be making jokes about me if everybody else was laughing at them. When the JLP started to attack me, instead of going into a nasty crash, back and forth with them, I just used humour to clown them and people loved that because they had never really seen it before.

“It’s always this nasty gutter politics, but when [they] have people laughing at them every time they go low, I realised after a while they backed off because they couldn’t fight that type of retaliation. They’re not used to it,” he told the
Sunday Observer.

He urged politicians, whether veterans or newcomers, to adopt this approach, warning that people can see through those who seek to deceive them.

“If you’re genuine, they can feel you, and that is what I got from my constituents. They feel me, they feel my genuineness, and that I really care. If you’re going into politics for the wrong reason, for self-enrichment and not for service, people are going to see through that. Our electorate is waking up; that is why our voter turnout is so low, overall.

“Just be genuine, and you have to have love for the people and show them the love, and they will see it if it’s genuine. You can’t fool them,” he warned.

As he looks to his future as Member of Parliament, Dawes said he aims to tackle low-hanging fruits in the constituency that need to be sorted.

“We have an election campaign team around us. Now, we’re going to put together a constituency building team, and I had pledged to involve the citizens’ associations a lot more in the decision-making process, so now we’re going to meet with all the divisional leaders, all of the community leaders, the citizens’ associations, the influential persons, the church community, the schools, and we want to form a coalition where everybody’s going to start to decide what are the priority areas that we need to focus on and start hammering away,” said Dawes.

“The good thing about this result is that I don’t have any ministerial responsibilities, so it’s all about the constituency now, and I have all intention of doing an amazing job to pay back the constituents for the trust and faith that they put in me, to choose me and what I bring…” he added.

Member of Parliament-elect for St Catherine South Eastern Dr Alfred Dawes (centre) embraces party supporters.