KINGSTON, Jamaica — People’s National Party (PNP) candidate for St Catherine East Central, Raymond Pryce is urging PNP supporters to vote early on September 3 to ensure there’s a “new PM (prime minister) by 1:00 pm”.

He was speaking Saturday night to comrades who had gathered for a Portmore mass rally at the Southborough constituency office of Fitz Jackson, the PNP candidate for St Catherine Southern, following an hours-long tour of the municipality.

Pryce, in rallying the PNP faithful, was playing on the ‘1PM’ slogan displayed by Prime Minister Andrew Holness recently.

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader first showed off the slogan on the back of a sweatshirt when he addressed the JLP mass rally in Half-Way Tree on August 10, where he announced September 3 as the date for the general election.

PNP President Mark Golding is looking to become Jamaica’s 10th prime minister, and Pryce also urged comrades to vote early on Election Day.

Describing it as “a little formula for success”, he told the crowd that “You and 10 must vote by 10. So by 10 o’clock, if yuh count yuhself an yuh lick yuhself and yuh say one, yuh must find 10 other people so eleven of unno must vote by 10. You and 10 must vote by 10 and then at 11:00, ten more again.”

Mocking Holness for saying during the leadership debate with Golding last Thursday that being born in Jamaica does not make you Jamaican, Pryce said, “Since all of us that are born in Jamaica may be not Jamaicans, I am inventing a new motto for all of us who are voters, new PM by 1PM.”

The former Member of Parliament (MP) for St Elizabeth North East, who’s looking to wrest the St Catherine East Central seat from the JLP’s Alando Terrelonge who defeated him in 2020, said “I look forward with humility and with honour, and a sense of deep commitment and purpose, to be the representative for East Central St Catherine while Mark Golding is prime minister.”

“So that my people in Lakes Pen can get their land title, so that my people in Newlands can get their land title, so that my people in Gulf (Gregory Park) can get their land title.”

Pryce then spoke to some of the plans the PNP intends to implement if it forms the government, including the provision of a full scholarship for the first person in a family to attend university, and the rent-to-own programme.

He said he most looked forward to being MP and serving in a Parliament “that has a prime minister who understands integrity, who believes in integrity and who lives integrity”.

— Lynford Simpson