Phillips unfazed by leadership talks today

Under-pressure People’s National Party (PNP) President Dr Peter Phillips says he is not worried about threats to his leadership of the Opposition ahead of today’s meeting with his parliamentary caucus.

The talks are expected to be underway.

Fifteen of the 29 opposition members of parliament (MPs) demanded the meeting in a letter to Phillips, which subsequently caused disquiet in the party. 

Phillips says he is looking forward to a positive outcome from the meeting and declared that his party would defeat the Jamaica Labour Party in the next general election. 

He is expected to outline how the PNP will navigate the choppy waters brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic as the party sets about embarking on election campaigning.

“We have regular meetings. We have had lots of meetings with Zoom, etc, with our candidates and others, so we are going into this meeting with a positive outlook,” Phillips said while touring schools in his East Central St Andrew constituency today.

PNP supporters who were present were overheard discussing the party’s affairs and defending Phillips’ leadership.

The 15 MPs said that the opposition leader had not met with them for months even with lingering concerns in the public domain about his cancer diagnosis earlier in the year. 

With elections in the air and the MPs raising concerns that COVID-19 is likely to have an impact on the polls, the PNP president spoke confidently about leading the party back to power. 

“I believe the People’s National Party, as a whole, intends to win, wants to win, can win, and will win. And so that is our expectation,” Phillips asserted.

At least one of the MPs who demanded today’s meeting told The Gleaner that Phillips would not be allowed to gloss over the “serious issues” that have been raised.

“There is a group, and we need to know where their head is. When we know, we will do what we have to do,” Phillips told The Gleaner last Monday night at the Mico University College, where the party was having an executive meeting, shrouded in controversy, over the letter. 

“We are a consultative party. That is why this notion that there is no meeting is so strange and uncalled for,” Phillips declared at the time.

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