Montego Bay, St James — Mount Salem Division Councillor Kerry Thomas has issued a robust warning to Montego Bay Mayor Richard Vernon, cautioning him towards following via on threats to take away political banners from public areas throughout the parish.
Talking on the Individuals’s Nationwide Social gathering’s (PNP) Montego Bay Central Divisional Convention on Sunday, Thomas urged the mayor to rethink the transfer, arguing that it may provoke pointless political tensions.
“If you happen to contact the PNP banners, I do know what is going to occur. Even with none of us saying something, a PNP supporter will contact a JLP [Jamaica Labour Party] banner, and that can create an surroundings we don’t need on this parish,” Thomas warned. “We don’t want that sort of surroundings right here.”
He emphasised the necessity for a good and democratic marketing campaign course of, echoing steerage from the Electoral Workplace of Jamaica (EOJ) that elections have to be free and honest, permitting all candidates the chance to marketing campaign throughout the regulation.
Thomas’s remarks are available response to latest statements by Mayor Vernon, who introduced final week that every one political marketing campaign supplies needs to be faraway from public areas in St James. He urged that if the directive was ignored, the municipal company would step in to take away the supplies and subject fines to these accountable.
Backing Thomas’s place, PNP Normal Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell referenced the City and Nation Planning (Management of Promoting) Rules, which, he mentioned, enable for political promoting throughout election intervals with no need permission from native authorities. He argued that any try by the mayor to take away such supplies could be exterior the bounds of the regulation.
The controversy deepened after JLP councillor Arthur Lynch of the Montego Bay South East division publicly referred to as for the removing of marketing campaign paraphernalia posted by PNP candidate Senator Janice Allen, asserting that Allen was not but an official candidate for the St James Central seat.
“You aren’t presupposed to be placing up any political paraphernalia until you’re a candidate, and, as we stand proper now, you aren’t a candidate of St James Central,” Lynch declared at a latest JLP marketing campaign occasion.
Campbell, nevertheless, defended the longstanding custom of marketing campaign promoting, stating that political events have at all times been allowed to erect posters and banners within the lead-up to elections. He urged the Electoral Fee of Jamaica (ECJ), now answerable for the capabilities of the political ombudsman, to subject a transparent ruling to stop additional battle.
As political tensions simmer in St James, all eyes at the moment are on the ECJ to offer readability and assist preserve a peaceable and lawful election surroundings.
