A St Elizabeth teacher who is ready for the journey to Gordon House
She is already prepared to represent the Opposition People’s National Party in the next general election, although the process of selecting a candidate is ongoing.
But don’t bring any “bad vibe” suggestion to Miranda Wellington that she will not be the chosen one to mount a challenge to incumbent Floyd Green in St Elizabeth South Western. Her pipe of progress is overflowing with confidence that her name will be on the ballot with the graphic that projects the head, by time the election is ready to be held.
The 16-year teacher of Caribbean history, Caribbean studies, and social studies at Black River High School, who has served for a similar period as constituency secretary for the PNP organisation in the south-west, regional vice-chairman for Region Five, and as constituency chairman, is moving with alacrity to realise her lifelong dream of serving at the representational level.
Two men stand in the way of that accomplishment though – physiotherapist Matthew Parchment and Alwayne Jackson, formerly of BoJ TV. But the Flagaman-born woman believes that with her organisational skills, constituency know-how, and general popularity, she too shall overcome by time a poll is conducted and the candidates face the party’s integrity commission. She has been interviewed already by party officials at the regional level.
“I am very confident,” Wellington told the Jamaica Observer in an interview last week, after having disclosed that she polled her colleagues at Black River High before making the decision to run. “I have always done politics and now it feels right to seek to face the electorate. When you find your purpose, you are on that playfield where everything seems possible,” said the former Hampton School head girl, who holds a Bachelor’s degree in history and political science from The University of the West Indies, Mona, and a postgraduate diploma in education and training.
“Many people had asked me over the years to run. But the PNP was brought into disrepute in south-west because of internal differences. When Ewan died, a lot of people felt I should have been the one to take on the seat, and I have now decided to do that,” she said, referring to former PNP candidate Ewan Stephenson, who ran, unsuccessfully, in the 2020 General Election, but died the following year after a two-year standoff with cancer of the stomach.
Still young, but with her bag of experience, the mother of a son, aged eight, added a bit more about her decision to step up.
“It was important that my family structure was safe … my home is now safe,” she replied. “I believe family is first. My son would have had to be living abroad if I were to do this before. I have ensured now that my son is fully taken care of. So if I am on the road for 24 hours, when I close my eyes I don’t want to be worried if my son is fed or taken care of. Different stages of your life require a different you. The stage at which I am at, I have had a feel of every aspect of life. This is now like the overflow of the saucer. You can’t give from an empty cup. Politics is a job of service, so if you are not full, you cannot give,” said Wellington, who launched her campaign for the seat in December 2022, and through her hectic physical activities and irregular eating patterns has lost 20 pounds, by her admission, since then.
Passionate about agriculture, having, according to her, been “schooled by scallion”, which grew up to her “doorstep”, Wellington wants meaningful emphasis to be placed on increasing food production in a parish that continues to lead Jamaica in that area. She rues, though, that farmers within the constituency that she seeks to represent and those in adjoining areas have not been given the support to increase growth in the sector and solidify their personal ambitions.
“Infrastructural development in this country is major, but nobody is investing in food security, why?” she asked.
“There needs to be investment in a parish in which farming is the lifestyle of the people. I am a teacher, but I know more about farming than a man whose bread and butter it is because I grew up in farming. Niche farming is good for St Elizabeth.
“We also need to recognise that the kind of farming that we want to go to is not at the primary level, because that’s not where the money is. The money is at the processing level. So if we are to be really serious about profiting from farming, this is how you attract the youth, they don’t necessarily see the value of the primary product. If you invest in farming, what you are selling for is at bare minimum compared to the man who is higglering and who is processing it. That man is making three times the money that the farmer makes.
“An entire generation is being ostracised based on the fact that they are not seeing the money value. So if you show them that they don’t have to think about just planting the crop, and there is opportunity creating added products from this crop, that will work. But investment has to be made in agricultural plants. We are not serious about development of St Elizabeth if you don’t, in developing farming, improve the water supply.
“[Former Member of Parliament] Donald Buchanan [now deceased] put me on the National Water Commission Board as the first youth representative on that board. I was with the National Irrigation Commission, chairing the board for St Elizabeth. Later, I was very instrumental in reducing the price of water when [Christopher] Tufton [then Minister of Agriculture] had raised the price and we had lobbied the Irrigation Commission to reduce the cost of water back to the farmers because their priority is providing water to farmers.
“The problem is not the water cost, it’s the trucking of the water that is costly. Every serious country subsidises water to their farmers, we don’t. We don’t help farmers in this country, but yet food is so vital. Why is that so? Yet you help people to start businesses. You have different initiatives. The Ministry of Economic Growth pumps serious money into businesses, small entrepreneurs, but nobody is investing money in the farmers, why? And farming is something that will give this country its wings again. It’s two things you can’t do without in your lifetime — you have to live somewhere and you have to eat food,” Wellington said.
Her mother, Doreen Blackwood, [deceased] was as deep into farming as she was into politics, giving support to the PNP machinery for several years and introducing her daughter to the game at age eight.
Dad Winchell Wellington is still an active farmer in his 70s.
Free speaker Wellington, who revealed that she has never been victimised for her political thoughts and leaning at her place of employ, foresees many challenges ahead on the road to reaching Gordon House, seat of the Jamaican Parliament, but is not deterred.
She, too, has also pledged not to use personal attacks against her opponent Green once she gets to the finish line ahead of the two other party aspirants.
“I live in a constituency where the demand on a woman candidate is far less than a man. Some men would not want to ask you for things because they have their pride about seeking things from women. Many of them simply want me to be there with them … sitting and talking with them. Of course, there are the normal things that you assist with, like grave digging time, wakes, funerals, helping with education causes, treats, and others, but that’s all a part of politics.
“There are so many people out there who just want attention. Even if you have nothing to give to them, they just want somebody to listen. We need to build back communities, build back community groups. We must back community structures through sports and other activities. Politically, we have cluster leaders etc, but what about the community leaders? People are connecting with people on Facebook more than they are connecting with their community people.
“St Elizabeth people, though, just want to be happy. They are voters. They vote whether things good or bad, but they vote based on who they have a connection with. I just need to keep my people happy. If I do what they want, they will be happy with me, because I am already a daughter of the soil. My mother was a big PNP supporter for many years. My family were workers for the PNP, and even the goodwill that I am getting now is as a result of the work that my mother did prior. She brought me into politics at age eight, when I was put on the platform by Danny Buchanan. I have never missed a political meeting with my mother, and Danny “Buck” basically took me under his wings from I was at Hampton. At age 12 I was understudying him, I was travelling with him more than his own children.
“As for Floyd, I personally do not have anything against him. I cannot go on a platform and say anything negative about Floyd. At one time we were in the same circles [of friends]. There is nothing he has on me and there is nothing negative that I would want to speak on a platform about him, because the campaign I would be running is about the people. The minute we start to campaign about personalities, it’s the minute people feel that we are too important for them. It’s the people’s empowerment programme that I am about,” Wellington argued.
As for financing a campaign, she has already set her eyes on targets in the Diaspora for fund-raising as well as local sources, including some of whom may support the ruling Jamaica Labour Party, generally, but who, regardless, believe in offering a hand to someone who has the people’s best interest at heart.
“Politics is expensive, so I am looking overseas, and also my past student support in Jamaica. When you are a teacher you are a guidance counsellor, a mother, a sister. I create a bond with the children. The most versatile group of people you can find are teachers, yet the Government has disrespected the largest public sector group in the country,” she veered, in commenting on the protracted dispute which involves the Jamaica Teachers’ Association and the Government over salaries.
“Teachers have benefited the least from this sham restructuring exercise,” she continued. “The teachers are unhappy, and there is no guarantee that come September there will be teachers in the classroom to teach. We are losing English, science, and mathematics teachers by the dozens. I don’t think the Government realises how impactful that sector of 24,000 teachers is to this country,” she said.