Critical vote ✘:JLP deputy leadership decider

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter

Bruce Golding has described the job of general secretary as perhaps the most demanding in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Today, 162 delegates of the party will at its Central Executive meeting elect either Daryl Vaz, Aundré Franklin, or Dr Charlton Collie as oiler-in-chief of the JLP machine.

"I want to urge those who are offering themselves, and I want to urge the central executive whose members will choose the next general secretary, to be mindful of the work that has to be done - to be mindful of what it takes to get that work done," the JLP leader told the party's 67th annual conference late last month.

"We have less than two years before the elections are due, and the task at hand, the work of the secretariat, at this time has to be to mobilise the party for victory in 2012," Golding told Conference last month.

best man for the job

Karl Samuda, the outgoing general secretary, has endorsed Franklin as the best man for the job.

"I have enjoyed working for the last six years as your general secretary," Samuda told Conference last month.

"I have worked with a fine team led by Aundré Franklin. I could not ask for better support than I received," he said as he bade goodbye.

The last general secretary race in the JLP ended in a landslide victory for Samuda. Then, in 2003, Samuda polled 90 votes to Edmund Bartlett's 49 and Arthur Williams' 10 to win the general secretary post. Prudence Kidd-Deans withdrew her nomination.

Political historian Troy Cain yesterday told The Sunday Gleaner that the fortunes of the JLP in the next election could hinge on whether the delegates elect the right person for the job.

"It is extremely important for them to have a very effective person who can carry the party forward in terms of campaigning, in terms of dealing with financing, in terms of getting the team of candidates together," Cain told The Sunday Gleaner.

He argued that candidate selection is a sensitive aspect of party organisation in preparing for an election. "It is not about finding candidates to win the seats that you are sure of, but more so candidates for those marginal seats which determine elections," Cain said.

The political historian has refused to pick a favourite, saying he is not close enough to the delegates to know what they are thinking and who they are intent on voting for.

"It is their call, and like you, I will be waiting to see who it is they select," Cain said.