Phillips Being Urged To Challenge Simpson-Miller For PNP Top Job

 

Vice president of the Opposition People?s National Party (PNP) Dr. Peter Phillips has confirmed reports he is being urged by party members to mount a challenge against Portia Simpson Miller for the Presidency.

It was reported that several senior PNP members and at least four major financiers of the party appealed recently to Phillips to challenge Portia Simpson Miller for the Presidency at September's annual conference.

"Yes, many persons in the party and supporters of the party have made the request. This includes persons who were opposed to my bid the last time around," he told The Sunday Gleaner. "They believe the PNP needs a renewal to get it back to its more traditional character, as the party with ideas and vision as led by Norman Washington Manley and Michael Manley".

The PNP Vice-President made it clear that although he agrees that all is not well inside the party, he is not pointing fingers at anyone.

"We have suffered as an organisation after many years in government and we don't have the same intellectual focus and policy direction as when I entered the party many years ago," he added.

In a four-horse race in 2006, Simpson Miller came out ahead of Dr. Phillips to secure the Presidency of the party, replacing PJ Patterson. She took the party into general elections last year but suffered defeat at the hands of the Bruce Golding-led Jamaica Labour Party which returned to power after 18 years in the political wilderness.

Since then, there have been reports of deep divisions in the party, with some persons dissatisfied with the leadership of Simpson Miller.

Dr. Phillips argued that many Jamaicans were concerned about the direction of the PNP and wanted to see a revival in the political party and a return to its traditional values.

"The PNP has been the leading political force in the country, but it doesn't have the same focus now".

However, Phillips was quick to add that he had not made a decision on whether he would launch a challenge.
"When I arrive at a decision, and if I decide to launch a bid for the leadership, it will not be in secret. I am looking at what is best for the PNP and how I can assist in its revival.

This is not about me," Dr. Phillips declared. "I don't want to destroy it or even wound it, even as we try to revive the party".

However, PNP vice-president Angella Brown-Burke, who supported Simpson Miller in her bid for presidency of the party in 2006, said she does not believe there is need for a leadership challenge now.

"The time is right for the PNP to buckle down to face challenges from outside," Brown-Burke said.

 

NY CARIB NEWS HEADLINES

 

1. The Sean Bell Murder Case: A Pattern Of Injustice Four Cops Acquitted After Killing An Unarmed Black Man

2. STATEMENT CONGRESSMAN CHARLES B. RANGEL On The Verdict In The Shooting Death O Sean Bell

3. Campaign Of Civil Disobedience In Wake Of Sean Bell Verdict Surprise Dissatisfaction And Outrage May Force New Yorker To The Streets To Express Feelings Over Injustice In Queens

4. Barbados New Diplomatic Team

5. Prime Minister Met Bajans in New York Coming Back This Weekend To Be Feted In City

6. Crime In The Caribbean: CARICOM Must Adapt Development Comes, With Crime, So New Approaches Necessary

7. Rising Prices Trigger Decline In Economy

8. Phillips Being Urged To Challenge Simpson-Miller For PNP Top Job

9. The View from Haiti Statement by Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., On His Trip To Haiti.

10. Letter To The Editor Meet & Gas Taxes And Submerged Lands

11. Inez Barron, Wife Of Councilman Charles Barron For New York State Assembly Of The 40th Assembly District In Brooklyn

12. Trinidad & Tobago PM Says Rowley Sacked For Bad Behavior

13. Hungry Haitians Struggling To Get To The United States New Wave Of Boat People

14. St. Lucia- Opposition Criticizes Budget

15. Dominica Public Consultation On OECS Economic Union Launched