UPROOTED! Hay-Webster's roots run deep in St Catherine

Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

In 14 years as the People's National Party's (PNP) representative for South Central St Catherine, Sharon Hay-Webster was not your average backbencher. Not many persons are surprised that her resignation from the party last Tuesday has ruffled a lot of feathers.

Hay-Webster, 50, stepped down after three years keeping detractors from both major political parties at bay. Her tenure in the House of Representatives had hung in the balance since 2008 when it was disclosed that she was born in the United States and retained US citizenship.

Of the parliamentarians caught in the messy dual-citizenship net, Hay-Webster had been the most vilified. She faced relentless calls to resign the parliamentary seat she first won in 1997 from the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) for the PNP.

In late May, those calls grew even louder when the PNP's Youth Organisation joined the chorus for her to resign.

Though she resigned from the PNP, Hay-Webster said she would continue to represent South Central St Catherine as an independent. She had some parting shots for the PNP, saying it had morphed from a party of intellects into "news-carrying" cliques.

That has not gone down well with senior party members, including General Secretary Peter Bunting and Vice-President Noel Arscott. On Wednesday, both men told a meeting of constituents in South Central St Catherine that Hay-Webster handled the dual-citizenship case badly.

They said she never expressed dissatisfaction with the party's direction despite several meetings with its hierarchy.

PNP REASON FOR CLOUT

Norman Scott is councillor for the Greendale division which is located in South Central St Catherine. He told The Sunday Gleaner that should she run as an independent in a general election, Hay-Webster would not have an impact, given the area's deep PNP ties.

Scott has been Greendale's representative in the St Catherine Parish Council since 1998, one year after Hay-Webster was elected to Parliament.

He claims she achieved little as parliamentarian.

"She has never been a good MP. The people never really vote for Sharon; dem vote for the PNP," he said.

Olivia Grange, the JLP MP for neighbouring Central St Catherine, disagrees. She believes Hay-Webster developed a strong bond with her constituents through several empowerment initiatives under the Lift Up Jamaica programme which was launched in 1999 by former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson.

"From where I sit, she had an excellent relationship with the constituents and brought a lot of passion and commitment to the table," Grange said.

"She was also extremely loyal to her party and I know she demanded that of her constituents."

Her dual-citizenship case caused some in the PNP to question that loyalty.

In a statement published in the May 29 Sunday Gleaner, Hay-Webster said she has never sworn allegiance to the US, which would prevent her from sitting in the local parliament.

"I am, by virtue of my own act, a citizen of Jamaica. I was only born in the United States of America. I have never taken an oath of allegiance to the United States of America and whatever allegiance I may be under is solely as a result of my birth there and certainly not by virtue of my own act," she wrote.

Unlike government MPs Daryl Vaz, Michael Stern, Shahine Robinson and Everald Warmington, who held US citizenship, Hay-Webster never renounced her ties to that country.

She did take steps to do so, according to a cable from the US Embassy in Kingston, published in the The Sunday Gleaner, courtesy of WikiLeaks.

It said Hay-Webster went to the embassy on July 31, 2009 to renounce her US citizenship, but returned four days later to reverse her decision.

In an August 2009 interview with The Sunday Gleaner, Hay-Webster said she advised members of her constituency executive that she was in talks with US Embassy officials to do away with her US citizenship.

retirement plans

Last June, Hay-Webster told The Gleaner of her plans to retire from representational politics in 2012.

"To tell the truth, the petty politics and crime and violence has sapped me," she said.

Hay-Webster's political problems started before the dual-citizenship issue. She was a vocal supporter of Dr Peter Phillips' unsuccessful 'Solid As A Rock' campaign for PNP president six years ago.

She backed Phillips when he staged another bid for the presidency against Portia Simpson Miller in 2008. Her subsequent removal from the PNP's frontline was seen by political trackers as punishment for not supporting Simpson Miller.

A teacher by profession, Hay-Webster's political roots run deep in St Catherine. Her grandfather, Lucien Hay, was a stalwart campaigner for the PNP in the 1940s and 1950s, while her father Lloyd ran unsuccessfully on a PNP ticket for the new North East St Catherine seat in the 1976 general election.

She entered Parliament in 1997, winning the South Central St Catherine seat, a PNP bastion previously represented by Ripton McPherson, Derrick Heaven and Heather Robinson.

Hay-Webster and Grange are credited in some quarters for bringing some stability between politically aligned gangs in their constituencies.

One of the highlights of Hay-Webster's career came in 2003 when she was part of a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) team that escorted deposed Haitian president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, from Africa to Jamaica where he was granted political asylum.