Residents call for removal of political paraphernalia
Published:Monday | May 6, 2024 | 12:05 AMBryan Miller/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Residents of the Orchard Housing Scheme in Hopewell, Hanover, are calling for the removal of all political paraphernalia in their community.
The call has come over two months after the local polls and against the background of the country not having a political ombudsman since November 2022.
The House of Representatives passed the Political Ombudsman Act 2024 on Tuesday, February 6, 2024, which will provide for the Office of the Political Ombudsman to be integrated into the Electoral Commission of Jamaica.
With orange and green flags, along with posters bearing photographs of the candidates in the last local government elections still on display across Hopewell, which includes the Orchard Housing Scheme, some residents are contemplating removing the political content from the community themselves.
“Matters like this we would normally report to the political ombudsman, and he or she would call for the removal of the mess islandwide; but there being none, we have to look about the cleaning up of our community ourselves,” one resident in the Orchard Housing Scheme told The Gleaner.
The cry was echoed by president of their citizens’ association, Monica McIntyre, during a community meeting held in collaboration with the Hanover Police Community Safety and Security Branch at Hopewell Sports Complex and Community Centre in the scheme on Sunday.
“The election is long gone, and there are flags, green and orange, strewn across the community. We do not want to see any of them. If you do not want to take them down anywhere else, please take them down from within the Orchard Housing Scheme,” McIntyre stated during the meeting.
Member of Parliament (MP) for Hanover Eastern Dave Brown of the Jamaica Labour Party, Councillor for the Hopewell division in the Hanover Municipal Corporation, Lennox Fray, of the People’s National Party (PNP) and aspiring MP Andrea Purkiss (PNP), were all present at the meeting.
Fray, who was elected for the first time as councillor for the Hopewell division in the recently held local government elections, told The Gleaner during an interview following the meeting that he will have his team remove all the political paraphernalia.
“I was advised that these items should be removed immediately after [the] election, so I will get them removed shortly,” he stated.
The Gleaner sought to establish whether Devon Brown, the former councillor for the Hopewell division and losing candidate in the recently held local government elections, will be making an effort to take down the flags and posters put up by his team. Efforts to contact Brown were unsuccessful.