Leader of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), Mark Golding, is urging the party’s supporters to put their differences aside on Local Government Election day and vote for the party as it attempts to set a positive stage for the next General Elections that are due next year.
“On Monday, yourselves, your family members, your neighbours, your friends, even those who maybe you and them haven’t been getting along so well in recent times; Monday is time to park that,” Golding told comrades at a PNP spot meeting in Brown’s Town, St Ann on Thursday.
“Monday is the time to just say, ‘Nutten like that now. One thing (we a deal wid), PNP business, Jamaica business we a deal wid’, and we all come out like a united orange force and do the right thing!” he added.
Golding reiterated a statement that Monday will be a “historic day for Jamaica”, arguing that victory for the Opposition party in the local polls will give them the momentum that will be necessary heading into the General Elections.
He said the party has “so many things to do” if it should form the next Government, suggesting that the country’s education and health systems are both in crisis.
“The education system is in a crisis. Over 30 per cent of our primary school children graduate to secondary schools and they can’t read and write, (and) they can’t do basic arithmetic,” Golding claimed.
Those developments, according to the PNP president, are “the source of many problems later in life”, including the crime and violence issue that has been gripping the country.
“We have to get to the foundations of those things as a PNP Government when we come in, and fix those things so we can have a bright future for this generation and generations to come,” declared Golding.
He suggested that a PNP Administration will also have to tackle the problems in healthcare, in particular issues relative to bed shortages for patients.
