Former Opposition Leader, Dr Peter Phillips, has slammed as a “side show”, talk of pending by-elections.
“It’s not only a side show, it’s downright disrespect for the Jamaican people,” said Phillips, while addressing the public session of the 86th annual conference of the People’s National Party (PNP) inside the National Arena in St Andrew on Sunday.
According to Phillips, “it’s disrespect for the right to representation for the people of South Trelawny and Morant Bay, who have been without representation for extended periods.
He was speaking against the background that a vacancy that arose in St Ann North East with the resignation with immediate effect of the sitting Member of Parliament (MP), Marsha Smith, earlier this month, will be filled on September 30 via a by-election.
Matthew Samuda is the representative of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in what is viewed as a safe JLP seat.
Nomination Day was September 11.
The PNP is boycotting the by-election.
Phillips said there is need for legislative reform that would cause a by-election to be held in a specified time whenever there is a vacancy. Such power, he said, should be given to the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) “so people stop playing and monkeying around with the constitutional right of the Jamaican people.”
Since announcing the September 30 by-election, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has indicated that other by-elections are imminent.
The Morant Bay Division of the St Thomas Municipal Corporation has been vacant since the death of the sitting PNP Councillor, Rohan Bryan, in May this year.
The death earlier this month of the JLP Councillor for the Aenon Town Division of the Clarendon Municipal Corporation has created another vacancy at the Local Government level.
In the case of South Trelawny, the constituency has been without representation since the sudden resignation of MP and then House Speaker, Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert, approximately a year ago.
And there will soon be another vacancy in St Andrew North Western, as the sitting MP, Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke, has been recruited by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a Deputy Managing Director, an appointment that he is to take up at the end of October.
