Witter no quitter despite whippings in Kingston Western
Despite a relatively low turnout of supporters on Monday, Joseph “Bunny” Witter, the People’s National Party (PNP) candidate for Kingston Western in the September 3 General Election, has high hopes of replacing the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Desmond McKenzie as Member of Parliament.
McKenzie has been consistently elected to represent the JLP bastion of Kingston Western since 2011 and destroyed Witter in the 2020 race polling almost 8,500 votes while fewer than 900 people voted for Witter.
Despite the whipping in 2020, Witter told journalists at Edward Seaga Primary School on Spanish Town Road, where he was nominated, that he feels like a winner.
“When I win, I plan to focus on a whole range of social programmes within the constituency, looking at crime, violence, relationship with the police and education. We have to look at ways how you can change the stigma of the constituency where people don’t have to look at it and call it inner city or ghetto and penalise those who live there. We need to change that culture,” Witter told the Jamaica Observer.
“I am looking to employ a whole range of community workers and social workers because we have to redo the attitude. One of the things we will love to do within our schools is launch a values and attitude programme. We will encourage the churches to get more into the communities and invite the younger ones to Sunday School to create a different culture so we can change the mindset of the young people. If you don’t do that, anything else you put out there we are going to end up back where we are now,” added Witter.
In the meantime, McKenzie told the party-like crowd of JLP supporters who showed up for his nomination that September 3 will mark the 19th general election to take place in Jamaica.
He noted that of the 18 general elections to be held so far the JLP has won the Kingston Western seat 16 times.
Despite this dominance McKenzie encouraged his constituents to come out and vote for the JLP on election day.
Jamaica Labour Party supporters in Kingston Western on Nomination Day, Monday, August 18. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)
