Jamaica’s PNP happy with cross-country tour

Strength of campaign machinery tested; party welcomes youth support

THE Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) says while party’s two-day cross-country bus tour was not intended as a test run it gave the organisation a good sense of its campaign machinery’s readiness.

“… We are very proud of how the machinery has performed over those two days,” General Secretary Peter Bunting told a press conference at the party’s headquarters in Kingston yesterday.

The cross-country bus tour was originally intended to ‘educate’ the populace about the outcome of the Dudus/Manatt Commission of Enquiry but that idea was apparently abandoned, giving the impression that the PNP was kick-starting its general election campaign. A defensive Bunting said, however, that it is the people who have launched a campaign as evidenced by the massive turnout for the cross-country bus tour, which started in Portmore, St Catherine and ended with a mass rally in Mandeville, the Manchester capital, on Thursday night.

General elections are due by September 2012.

The PNP general secretary, meanwhile, would not put a cost to mobilising the bus loads of supporters who turned out in their colours to support the initiative on Wednesday and Thursday.

“If I were to give you a figure you would think I am deceiving you because much of what we have achieved has been in kind and due to the kindness and generosity of supporters and sympathisers across the island,” Bunting said.

According to Bunting, the party had only made allowances for a motorcade consisting of 15 official vehicles and two buses, but this swelled to more than 200 as persons financed their own petrol to participate in the tour.

“We didn’t give any mobilisation support; that was just a spontaneous response of persons who wanted to become engaged in what was going on,” he said.

Already, Bunting said, the party is looking at a second bus tour, which would take in parishes which were not visited this time around.

“It is our intention, after conference (in September), to look at having one or two more depending on how we look at the logistics to cover those parishes and as many constituencies as possible,” Bunting said.

The two day event, which saw the party’s motorcade travelling through 10 parishes, had the support of thousands of young people, leaving the PNP “pleasantly surprised”.

“I don’t think it is any secret that in the last election we struggled to get the support of young people because they knew nothing else but a PNP administration and just wanting to try something different, so we were pleasantly surprised and welcome the participation of so many under-30s,” Bunting told reporters.

Angella Brown-Burke, a vice-president of the PNP, said it was not only diehard PNP who supported the event.

“We have a government where individuals are almost afraid to speak their mind and so persons who have called to express support or who we have stopped to engage us one on one; many of those were not diehard PNP,” she told the press conference.

Pointing to recent poll results showing Jamaicans’ dissatisfaction with Government’s handling of the Manatt affair, Bunting said the PNP’s actions were not motivated by the polls but the principle. That aside, he said the party remains mindful of the poll results.

Source: The Jamaica Observer