Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter

Bruce Golding (left), leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), in discussion with Audley Shaw, the party's spokesman on finance, during yesterday's JLP Central Executive meeting at the Jamaica Conference Centre. - Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer

Bruce Golding, the leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), yesterday warned its candidates to ensure they are connecting with voters in their constituencies ahead of the next general election.

Despite his firm warning, however, Mr. Golding claimed the JLP, contrary to recently published poll results, is in the driver's seat toward forming the Government for the first time since 1989.

He stressed though that care should be taken to ensure that the governing People's National Party (PNP) has no room to gain an advantage in any constituency.

17-year journey

"We have worked too hard, we have come too long and we have been in on this journey for 17 long years and we cannot allow anything to stop us ... ," Mr. Golding said.

He was speaking at yesterday's JLP Central Executive meeting at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston.

Mr. Golding told Labourites that the JLP will be basing their campaign on alleviating poverty.

He lamented that the PNP has only spoken about poverty eradication while failing to deliver on its promises.

He also took the Prime Minister to task for the deplorable state of her constituency and other communities in the inner city and rural Jamaica where people live in squalor.

"You (Mrs. Simpson Miller) glorify poverty to the extent that you convey the feeling that it is good to be poor," Mr. Golding said. "In this campaign we are going to challenge that. If you really love poor people you must hate poverty."

He added: "What poor people are longing for is not love, if you can love them that is fine. What they want is liberation."

Intensive campaigning

Noting that he expects an election, either Local Government or general elections, to be called by December, the JLP leader said that, as of this week, his party will be starting a programme of intensive campaigning right across the nation.

The JLP launched its campaign in July with a five-day road tour which it claimed was hugely successful.

JLP general secretary Karl Samuda told The Gleaner that, based on the party's research, it should be expected to form the next government.

While refusing to say how many seats the JLP believes it has already wrapped up, he said the party will be "fighting this election, seat by seat, and we feel that we are comfortably ahead".

Mr. Samuda added: "The party is ahead and doing well. Whether they call the election now or in the next couple of months, the JLP would win with a comfortable working majority."