THE Government and Opposition engaged in a fresh political squabble on Monday over a comment by People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding that appears to encourage the casting of ballots in the names of dead voters.

Golding made the controversial comment on Sunday during a rally in St Andrew East Rural where the PNP introduced Patrick Peterkin as its candidate to contest the next general election.

“We have fi mek sure seh every Comrade who voted fi the People’s National Party in 2011 and delivered the victory, if they’re still alive, dem haffi go vote fi Comrade Patrick Peterkin when the election call — and even some who not alive, yu know, if dem can deal wid it, no problem, because as dem seh a we name power, power party,” Golding said, eliciting laughter among the supporters.

But Monday afternoon the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) condemned Golding, saying, “Such a reckless statement amounts to the promotion of electoral fraud and poses a grave threat to the integrity of the democratic process.”

According to JLP General Secretary Dr Horace Chang, Jamaica has made significant strides in securing free and fair elections, fostering a transparent and accountable electoral system that upholds the principles of democracy.

He said Jamaicans should be deeply disappointed by the Opposition leader’s statement, and called on Golding to have it retracted to disavow any support for electoral fraud.

However, late Monday afternoon PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell said his leader’s comments “were reported on without proper context” and were basically made in jest.

According to Campbell, Golding had emphasised the significance of rallying support from all individuals willing and able to cast their votes. “The statement in question was a light-hearted response to a remark from a supporter who said, “…wake dem up…” to which Golding later added, “cause, as they say, we are the power party”.

Campbell said that “without context the portion of the speech which is in the public domain has been misconstrued as literal when it was, in fact, intended as humour and was purely figurative in nature”.

He said the PNP “upholds the principles of free and fair elections, ensuring the integrity of Jamaica’s democratic process” and “urges the Electoral Commission of Jamaica to ensure that the voters’ list is cleaned up, as no political party should be able to cause dead persons to vote in Jamaican elections”.

Before the establishment of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) in December 2006, elections in the island were marred by complaints of voter fraud and there were instances of political parties pointing to the names of dead people appearing on the voters’ list.