Court docket motion looms and the place of the immediately elected Mayor of Portmore is all however abolished because the governing Jamaica Labour Get together (JLP) on Tuesday used its super-majority within the Home of Representatives to move the Counties and Parishes (Modification) Act 2025, successfully making Portmore Jamaica’s 15th parish.
It’s the primary time in over a century {that a} new parish is being created in Jamaica, and it units up a authorized showdown as Opposition Chief Mark Golding mentioned the Individuals’s Nationwide Get together (PNP) will do every part in its energy to have the regulation overturned.
The get together’s spokesman on issues associated to Portmore, Fitz Jackson, went additional by stating that the PNP could be headed to the courts.
“We’ll meet the Authorities within the courts. And on behalf of the Opposition, I’m serving discover that when the Individuals’s Nationwide Get together types the following authorities, we are going to repeal this Act. We’ll enable the individuals of Portmore to find out their future, their type of authorities as a result of the desire of the individuals should at all times prevail,” mentioned Jackson.
The Member of Parliament for St Catherine Southern additionally accused the Authorities of trying to overturn the outcomes of the 2024 Native Authorities Election by eliminating the immediately elected mayor of Portmore.
This he mentioned was akin to “political stranglehold”.
Describing it as an influence seize, Jackson urged the Authorities to withdraw the invoice and have interaction the individuals to no avail.
For his half, Golding mentioned the motion of the Authorities amounted to a “deplorable travesty and an aberration for these democratic rights of the individuals of Portmore to be eliminated with out their consent or approval by this Authorities abusing its parliamentary majority”.
“This invoice will destroy the expressed will of the individuals,” Golding mentioned, pointing to the removing of the incumbent mayor. He mentioned the JLP was positioning to put in a mayor of its personal.
In accusing the JLP of gerrymandering, Jackson highlighted that historically robust PNP areas – Lime Tree Grove, Lakes Pen, Quarry Hill and Grange Lane had been reduce from Portmore. Golding mentioned these communities which had been reduce from St Catherine South, Jackson’s constituency, and St Catherine East Central, the constituency of Alando Terrelonge representing the JLP, had been now in no man’s land and new constituency boundaries must be drawn.
However Terrelonge, in his contribution to the controversy, brushed apart the argument that politics was at play and declared that the JLP will win no less than two of the three Portmore seats within the subsequent basic election constitutionally due by September.
And, of their contributions to the controversy, Authorities MPs, Dr Andrew Wheatley and Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn each attacked Jackson who they mentioned was their MP, declaring him to be a poor consultant. They questioned why the PNP was reluctant to see Portmore acquire parish standing.
File picture of Native Authorities Minister Desmond McKenzie
When he closed the controversy McKenzie ramped up the assault, accusing the PNP of being in opposition to something progressive. He charged it was the PNP that prosecuted Nationwide Hero Marcus Garvey, working him out of Jamaica. He additionally charged that the PNP was in opposition to Edward Seaga when he proposed the constructing of Independence Metropolis in Portmore within the early Sixties, claiming Seaga needed to place individuals to reside within the swamp. He additionally charged that the PNP has achieved nothing for Portmore whereas pointing to establishments just like the Portmore Coronary heart Academy which was established by the JLP.
When he piloted the invoice, Mckenzie mentioned “This can be a day of super historic significance. That is the day once we as lawmakers…start the method of reworking town municipality of Portmore into the parish of Portmore and the 15th parish”.
The native authorities minister mentioned it was not merely including to the rely of parishes and highlighted that it was the primary time in post-colonial Jamaica {that a} new parish was being created.
After Golding had earlier said that the PNP wouldn’t help the invoice, he later led a walkout of Opposition members earlier than the ultimate vote was taken. This adopted a divided vote which noticed the JLP prevail 28-10. Twenty-four lawmakers had been absent from the historic debate.
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