Seaga warns of PNP tricks to come

Carlington Wilmot/ Freelance Photographer Opposition Leader Edward Seaga (left) and JLP candidate for West St. Thomas James Robertson (second left) survey flood damage at Ten Miles, St. Andrew, while supporters look on.

JAMAICA LABOUR Party (JLP) Leader Edward Seaga has warned his party's supporters to be on the look-out for unscrupulous tactics being planned by the ruling People's National Party (PNP) in its bid to regain power in the upcoming General Election.

Addressing a huge turnout of supporters at Denham Town in his West Kingston constituency, Mr. Seaga said he had been reliably informed that there was a plan for PNP candidates to be surrounded by armed bodyguards from private security companies on Election Day. He said it was well known "what kinds of people those bodyguards are. We know what else they plan."

The Opposition Leader said the Labour Party would be making a close examination of the report, as indications are that licensed firearm holders with the right to use their weapons, were to be a prominent feature of the security arrangements for the PNP candidates.

PRIVATE BODYGUARDS

"Whether it be the Commissioner or whether it be the Ombudsman, we will take up the matter with the PNP, find out if it is true and if it is true, tell them to back off, because all kinds of things could happen that we don't want to happen, if that is true," declared Mr. Seaga. "It is not necessary. It is the job of the Police Force to protect the citizens of the country. Private bodyguards are used only by certain people who have reason to fear for their lives or who have reason to use them to threaten other people's lives."

Mr. Seaga said the PNP was bent on mischief out of recognition that the people were bent on change. For example, he said he had held many meetings in Denham Town before, but few had seen the kind of support which was there last night. He said it was a clear sign of determination from the people that "the time has come for a change".

He said despite the rains last Sunday - the original date of the meeting - thousands had braced the conditions to be there and they were evidently back in greater numbers last night, making it one of the biggest meetings ever held in the community.

"What that is telling us is that labourites are ready, they are ready in the same way they were ready in 1980, because it was only in 1980 that we had the people coming out in these numbers and as determined as they are today, and every constituency you go to, it is the same thing", declared Mr. Seaga. He pointed Port Maria, Falmouth and Oracabessa as towns where the JLP had not held meetings for decades, yet they "were ram jammed during recent meetings there."

Mr. Seaga said the people were learning that the PNP representatives were avoiding the issues in their campaign and didn't have anything concrete to say on their platforms. "All they are now talking about is who sick and who is healthy..., he said "It has reached the state where the Prime Minister has had to show them his health certificate to prove that he is not sick. I don't have to show no health certificate....But if they want my health certificate, they can get it anytime. My doctor tells me if everybody had a health certificate like mine, all doctors would be out of business," he asserted.

REAL RACE

He said Nomination Day support for the JLP islandwide, had sent a sharp signal to the PNP that the real race had only just started.

Mr. Seaga said the JLP was, however, disturbed about acts of violence and intimidation being mounted against supporters of the party. He pointed to a number of incidents Sunday's gun attack on Denham Town from Hannah Town; shots fired into Jacques Road from across the PNP side on lower Mountain View Avenue in Kingston; and reports of political violence breaking out in Central St. Catherine yesterday afternoon - as sinister signals of foul play in the making.

Those developments, he said, were taking place while the JLP was brokering peace across the island, such as his initiative to have his West Kingston opponent and himself nominated together as a show of unity, at the Denham Town High School on last Monday.

PLOT

Mr. Seaga said he recently visited a constituency where elements of a sinister Election Day plot were outlined to him and he passed the information on to the relevant authorities. He said his main hope was that West Kingston would not be targeted again.

Mr. Seaga said after the major loss of life and destruction in West Kingston last year July, he brought representatives of the private sector into the area, especially Denham Town, to show how the communities had been neglected since the change of Government in 1989. He said no roads in the area had been properly resurfaced since then, neither was there even a single house built by the government since 1989.

"West Kingston gets no attention whatsoever, unless a Labour Party Government is in power," said Mr. Seaga. He pointed out that all development works had been cut off and the focus was always on demonising him as a representative, in order for the PNP to take full control of West Kingston, including all access routes to Gordon House, the seat of the nation's Parliament.