OPPOSITION Leader Andrew Holness triumphed again over internal rivals by easily winning a secret ballot among Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) members of parliament (MPs) at a caucus called yesterday to decide his future.
Twenty of the JLP’s 21 MPs took part in the poll at the party’s Belmont Road headquarters in Kingston, with Holness being the only one without a vote. The result of the ballots showed that he had the support of approximately two-thirds of the MPs.
Thirteen of the MPs supported him remaining as their leader, while seven were opposed. Deputy Leader JC Hutchinson, the only MP absent following medical surgery, sent in his ballot in a letter.
However, the rebel MPs could take some solace in the fact that the votes against Holness were two more than the five expected.
Yesterday’s vote also signalled that the anti-Holness faction is declining among those who favoured his rival in the bitter 2013 leadership race, Audley Shaw.
Leader of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives, Derrick Smith, admitted yesterday that his intention in calling the meeting was not to seek a vote among MPs, but to allow for discussions on the issues generated by two recent court decisions against Holness.
The Constitutional Court had ruled that Holness’ request for and use of undated pre-signed resignation letters to oust Arthur Williams and Dr Christopher Tufton from the Senate was unconstitutional.
Holness appealed the ruling but lost in the higher court.
Smith said that after discussions on a number of issues at the meeting, he was willing to allow the dissenters to put Holness’ popularity to a test.
“It was obvious that the party now has to put this leadership issue behind us and move on,” Smith said, pointing to the need to get the JLP machinery ready for both upcoming local government and general elections.
Smith said that, despite the vote, he picked up at the meeting that the two sides were moving ahead as one.
“I am very convinced that, based on the mood of the meeting, and the final result of the meeting, that we all will be together; we will sing from the same hymn book,” Smith said.
The dissenting members refused to speak with the media following the ballot, acknowledging that Smith was appointed to make press statements.
Veteran MP Edmund Barlett, who had supported Shaw in 2013 but now supports Holness, said that he was confident that the party would move ahead, united.
“We are one. We agreed on a position and now we are going out there to beat the PNP: We are going out there to beat the PNP, that is the mission,” Bartlett said.
Holness, who also chaired last night’s meeting of the powerful Standing Committee, put on a show of how this elusive unity could be achieved, when he led a large team of JLP MPs, including several of his detractors, to a political rally and gospel concert hosted by Everald Warmington’s South Western St Catherine constituency in Old Harbour on Sunday night.
Holness introduced to supporters a number of MPs, including Karl Samuda, Mike Henry, Pearnel Charles, Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, Shahine Robinson, Dr Andrew Wheatley, Rudyard Spencer, James Robertson, and Warmington.
Finance spokesman Shaw was also scheduled to speak, but was said to be unavoidably absent.
The theme of the rally was political unity, and Holness, in his effort to promote that theme, used several quotes from the Bible, including Romans chapter 12, verses 4 – 5 which reads:
“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function: So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Holness said that the JLP cannot remain a divided house.