Mark Golding on Thursday indicated that he enjoys the confidence of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), saying that 27 of the 28 candidates who won their seats in the September 3 General Election have signed a letter supporting his presidency of the party.

Golding also shot down talk that he should offer his resignation to the party after it lost the fiercely contested election 28-35 to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), a historic third-consecutive victory for the ruling party.

Some public commentators have, since the election, argued that Golding should have given the PNP the option of asking him to remain in his position, in keeping with a precedent observed by previous PNP presidents.

However, at a news conference at PNP headquarters on Old Hope Road in St Andrew called to give a report on the party’s election performance, the results, and concerns which emerged, Golding said he new of no such standard.

“I am not aware of any historic precedent. There have been instances where party leaders have offered their resignations and there are instances where they haven’t. I serve at the pleasure of the party and I am happy to continue in the capacity of the leader as long as the party wants me to,” Golding said.

“Thus far, all MPs who have been elected, except one, have signed a letter confirming that they have confidence in me and want me to be the leader of the opposition, and that is where it is right now,” he said.

The party said the one elected candidate who has not yet signed it is currently off the island.

Flanked by PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell and St Andrew Western winning candidate Anthony Hylton, Golding told journalists that the PNP will not be seeking a magisterial recount for any of the seats it lost and turned his focus to the future.

“I think that we now have a united party. We have a team that is working together and has worked together well throughout the campaign. I think that the organisation as a whole is strong. That’s not to say there aren’t areas that need improvement; there are, but we did significant training for our workers over the last several months,” he said.

“There has been a process of building and improvement which was reflected in the additional 97,000 votes that we won. We were really building on the success of the local government elections in February 2024 where we won the popular vote quite handsomely and we ended up with six municipal corporations and the city municipality of Portmore making it seven, which is the same number as the JLP have, but we have one more division than they do,” Golding said.

“The fact that we didn’t ultimately win the election suggests that there are areas where our preparation could have been stronger. What we have come to realise, going through this experience, is that some of the tactics that we have to manage are not normal, orthodox, or in the book but are things that are being deployed quite effectively by our opponent which we haven’t yet mastered a methodology of responding to. We were ready, but in terms of specific seats, our response to them was inadequate,” he added.

Responding to journalists’ questions on whether Golding should resign or not, Campbell said that when the JLP was defeated in the 2011 General Election Andrew Holness remained as leader.

“He did not resign; he stayed there and he didn’t even make public the appraisal committee report that was done. Ten of the the 21 MPs signed a no-confidence in him. He was the one who saved himself with his cast in vote,” Campbell claimed.