Lisa ‘was fed up’
Golding says Hanna declined PNP offers to move to other seat
Published:Thursday | September 15, 2022 | 12:11 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
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People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding says the party made several offers to St Ann South Eastern Member of Parliament Lisa Hanna prior to her announcement not to seek re-election when the current political cycle ends. Those offers...
People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding says the party made several offers to St Ann South Eastern Member of Parliament Lisa Hanna prior to her announcement not to seek re-election when the current political cycle ends.
Those offers included the option for Hanna to be relocated to another constituency following years of toxic relations with PNP councillors and supporters in the one-time party stronghold.
Hanna last month shocked the country when she made public a letter to Golding informing him that she would quit representational politics after four terms as a parliamentarian.
“Offers were made,” said Golding on Wednesday during a Gleaner Editors’ Forum. “We were open to anything that Lisa may want to do, but at this point in time, as has been said, she was fed up.”
Golding said Hanna might have felt that she had reached the end of her tether with the conflicts she has been grappling with for many years within the constituency.
“She has made up her mind that she wants to do something else for a while and we have to respect that. It’s not what I want, but it is what it is,” the opposition leader said.
Hanna was unavailable for comment.
A recent RJRGLEANER-commissioned Don Anderson poll found Hanna, the opposition spokesperson on foreign affairs, to be the best-performing shadow minister, scoring 24 per cent.
But her prime ministerial ambitions were dashed by delegates when her challenge to Golding fizzled in a November 2020 PNP leadership contest.
That was preceded by a challenge to her leadership in the constituency by PNP councillor-turned-independent for the Bensonton division, Lydia Richards, in 2016.
Reported grudges that persisted reflected in Hanna’s re-election bid in September 2020 after she managed to retain the seat by a mere 31 votes against Delroy Granston, a Jamaica Labour Party neophyte.
Hanna had also escaped criminal charges but was slammed for nepotism and cronyism in the award of millions of dollars in contracts in St Ann in a ruling by the director of public prosecutions (DPP).
The then Office of the Contractor General (OCG) conducted an investigation into allegations of impropriety and corruption at Hanna’s constituency office and the award of contracts by the St Ann Municipal Corporation.
The ruling said that the OCG’s findings did not rise to the level of a criminal charge, noting that nepotism and cronyism were not offences under the law here. More would be needed to mount a criminal prosecution, it said.
Hanna, in her letter to Golding, said that the journey had “not always been easy” and that “the political baptisms of fire were often unrelenting and excruciating”.
“I think how she feels about things may evolve. Right now she has some things that she wants to deal with in her personal life and that she’s working on, and I respect that and I’m supportive of it,” said Golding, who noted that he and Hanna are on good terms.
Golding said that he was blindsided by the letter although he was aware of the challenges she had been facing within her constituency.
He said that a team was mandated to visit the constituency approximately eight months ago to address the issues “but the situation continued to be problematic”.