PNP to serve up its ‘Manifesto Lite’
Published:Saturday | August 23, 2025 | 12:13 AMRuddy Mathison/Gleaner Writer
The People’s National Party (PNP) says it will on Monday unveil a ‘Manifesto Lite’, a condensed version of its 70-page policy document released earlier this month, mixed with new proposals.
Addressing a press conference on Friday at the party’s Old Hope Road headquarters in St Andrew, campaign spokesperson Donna Scott-Mottley explained that the new document was part of the PNP’s broader communication strategy.
“We will very shortly also be launching what we call a manifesto lite which is really ideas that we are taking from our present manifesto, but there are some which we will be introducing for the first time, because we know that those who accused us of copying and pasting are experts at it,” she declared.
Scott-Mottley pushed back against the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) plans to launch its own manifesto at a mass rally on Sunday, arguing that such an approach was not people-centred.
“So, I gather that on Sunday night they have decided to do something that is quite unique, never done before in the country, in another parish apart from Kingston, to persons who are their own diehard base, their own supporters,” she said, emphasising, “it is not a document for the people of Jamaica but to their own supporters”.
She noted that, from the outset, the PNP had signalled its intention to release a supplementary document.
“At the very launch of the manifesto they had made it absolutely clear that there was going to be another document that was presented,” she added.
However, the announcement has drawn criticism from JLP Cabinet member and senior party spokesman Edmund Bartlett, who accused the Opposition of repackaging weak ideas.
PNP’S POSITION DISMISSED
In an interview with The Gleaner, Bartlett dismissed the PNP’s position.
“What has happened is that they have rethought the manifesto that they presented to the Jamaican people and figured that elements of it don’t make sense,” Bartlett said.
He argued that the PNP had simply borrowed from government initiatives.
“They just put some nice AI words to what we have been doing. When I read it, it’s everything that we have been doing, what they [have] done is to put new verbiage around it that is more confusing than anything else.”
Bartlett said the move to publish a trimmed-down version was no surprise.
“I am not surprised that they would want to launch a Manifesto Lite now, which no doubt is to review what they have done and to give it context and sense.”
According to him, public reception of the PNP’s manifesto has been underwhelming.
“The reaction to the PNP manifesto has been very negative in a lot of places, and people do think that it is just a collection of words that are AI generated,” he claimed, adding that, “by picking out some one liners is a way of giving it context and relevance”.
The launch of the PNP’s Manifesto Lite will come a day after the JLP is expected to release its own policy platform during a rally in St James, as the campaign for the September 3 general election continues to heat up.