Political twists and turns
Published:Sunday | December 25, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
WITH ONLY four days to go, and the polls contining to point to a cliff-hanger for Thursday's General Election, the twists and turns of shifting political alliances have become more frenzied.
People's National Party (PNP) got an added fillip last week as they found out that two former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) members of parliament (MP) for Southern Trelawny were in the corner of Lyndel Frater, another former MP who is running on their party ticket.
The two are Brascoe Lee, who held the seat between 1980 and 1989 and again in 1993 and Devon McDaniel, the MP in 2002. Frater won the seat for the PNP in 1989. Lee is now campaign manager for Frater.
While it is old story that Lee has nothing to do with the JLP, McDaniel is a different case.
A PNP tour in Trelawny last week exposed him as one of the men working under the radar as a strong support man for Frater who won the seat for the PNP in 1989.
A search for McDaniel by The Sunday Gleaner failed to yield result, and JLP supporters expressed surprise at the claim. Frater's phone also went unanswered.
McDaniel is among a small group of politicians who have been trading places in Jamaica's political arena.
Dual-citizenship battle
It was only in January of this year that McDaniel's lawyers, on behalf of the JLP, served papers on the then MP for South Central St Catherine, Sharon Hay-Webster in the dual-citizenship battle that would eventually send her packing from the PNP.
For its part, the JLP is also chuckling with satisfaction at developments in St Thomas. Although PNP supporters admitted to having knowledge of former PNP candidate Rosemarie Shaw assisting Dr Patrece Charles-Freeman of the JLP, they reacted with stony silence when they were confronted with the evidence.
Shaw, a former JLP activist, resigned from that party after a public fallout with the then leader Edward Seaga in 1995.
She had been close to Charles Freeman's father, the veteran politician Pearnel Charles, a casualty of the Gang of Five scandal and the 1993 general election.
Shaw, who joined the People's National Party Youth Organisation after JLP councillors passed a no-confidence motion removing her as mayor, unsuccessfully challenged the JLP's James Robertson for the seat.
As the JLP chairperson of, and caretaker for Western St Thomas, Shaw supported defeated leadership contender, Dr Peter Phillips. She resigned as caretaker from the post after Phillips lost the leadership battle.
Shaw had drifted off the political radar until news emerged that she was helping Charles-Freeman in her bid to wrest the Eastern St Thomas seat from Dr Fenton Ferguson who defeated her father in the electoral avalanche of 1993.
The JLP had the first laugh when Sharon Hay-Webster, the beleaguered former MP for South St Central St Catherine resigned from the PNP and was accepted to run on the JLP ticket in the same constituency that has been renamed Eastern St Catherine.
It would have been unheard of 10 years ago that Hay-Webster, the second-generation PNP politician who brought a censure motion against then JLP leader Edward Seaga, would be donning green.
Now as a Labourite, Hay-Webster is up against Denise Daley of the PNP in a constituency that is weighted heavily in favour of her former party, given its history.
It was Hay-Webster, on the PNP ticket, who defeated McDaniel who had flip-flopped into South Central St Catherine in the 2007 general election, after leaving the constituency he won in 2002.
Like Shaw, Brasco Lee had been a 'born and bred labourite', but walked away in the midst of the tumultuous period when Seaga was leader of the JLP and Bruce Golding, the chairman.
Lee accompanied Golding to the National Democratic Movement (NDM), but later described Golding as a sell-out when he returned to the JLP.
Having nothing to do with the JLP and the weakened NDM, Lee attempted in 2002 to resurrect his political life by reconnecting with his hometown people.
His hope of being re-elected on the PNP ticket was dashed when another candidate was chosen.