THE ruling People’s National Party’s plan to install Lisa Hanna as its candidate in South-East St Ann was given another blow yesterday when it emerged that the former beauty queen was not on the voter’s list and was not yet a member of the party.

Hanna, who was enumerated to vote in the 2002 general election, is reported to have had her name removed from the voter’s register as she was not reverified at the address which she had given.

The reverification of voters is a requirement of the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ), which runs the country’s elections, to remain on the voter’s list.

The cut-off for reverification was March 31, for the May 31 list, which is not due to be updated until November. However, elections are due by October.

Yesterday, the PNP acknowledged the situation, but downplayed the likely embarrassment it had caused the party’s hierarchy.

“I have not spoken to anyone on the matter. But I believe I can say that the party will issue a statement on the matter shortly,” said deputy campaign manager and Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s trusted pointman Paul Burke.

Burke, said he was not authorised to say any more on that issue.

However, Hanna’s ineligibility to vote is not the only issue on which the party will have to put an immediate spin. The pretty ex-beauty queen is neither a member of a PNP group nor a direct member of the party.

Burke said, however, that the issue of membership was not a problem. “The issue of membership for the person recommend is not a problem and is on track. Notice how I said it, the person recommended, I did not call any names,” Burke said.

Hanna, who was married to former JLP Senator David Panton, was an executive member of the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) affiliate G2K, where her former husband was an executive.

Hanna, in the meantime, is reported to have released a letter, dated May 25, to G2K president Warren Newby, resigning from the organisation and outlining her inactivity as a member.

Hanna, a PNP source said, is expected to speak publicly on her entry into representational politics next week.

Under the Representation of the People Act, a general election candidate does not need to be on the voter’s list. However, a candidate’s ineligibility to vote would raise the issue of the candidate’s moral authority to seek a mandate from electors.