Phillips accuses Bunting's team of using money to influence election outcome

President of the People’s National Party (PNP) Dr Peter Phillips today delivered some verbal jabs at the man seeking to unseat him, even suggesting that members of the Rise United campaign team are using cash to influence the outcome of Saturday’s internal election.

But three days before the fight of his political career, the 69-year-old Phillips expressed confidence that the delegates of the PNP will return him as president over his challenger Peter Bunting.

“I am not feeling any pressure,” he told journalists during a press conference hosted by his One PNP campaign team at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, in St Andrew.

Lisa Hanna, communications director for the One PNP team, told reporters that a “senior leader” of the Peter Bunting-led Rise United team was in her South East St Ann constituency yesterday handing out envelopes containing $10,000 to delegates who are eligible to vote.

“Every time he went to a delegate and left the envelope I was called. They are all over the place,” Hanna claimed during the press conference.

Phillips also said aspects of the campaign have been “a forceful reminder of the nature of the role of money in politics in Jamaica.”

“Money has never been a central feature of the People’s National Party’s appeal to the people of Jamaica. We will never forget Norman Manley’s effort at political education nor Michael’s injunction: ‘we are not for sale’,” he declared, citing the first two presidents of the party.

The PNP president said the party’s capacity to reject the role of money in the nation’s political life is going to be weakened to the extent that there are people in the PNP who seek to use money as a vehicle for persuasion within the party.

In a broadside against his rival, Phillips said the campaign began as a virtual referendum on his leadership, orchestrated by persons in search of power. 

“The fact is, they started the campaign on the basis of a poll. The truth is if we were to use a poll to determine the successor to me then I would say the present challenger would not be in the top tier.”

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