Dawes boycotts Portmore boundary review, branding talks a kangaroo exercise

St. Catherine Southeast Member of Parliament Dr. Alfred Dawes says he will not return to meetings reviewing electoral boundaries linked to Portmore’s creation as Jamaica’s newest parish, calling the exercise a “kangaroo committee” and accusing the Government of gerrymandering.

Dawes, speaking in a Gleaner interview replayed on CVM’s Lead Story and later in studio with host Tyrone Reed, argued that elected officials were being asked to endorse lines already decided. He said neighbours in communities such as Phoenix Park had been split across parish lines, and that polling divisions including Lime Tree, Lilliput and Lakespen—areas he described as long-standing People’s National Party strongholds—had been cut from East Central St. Catherine without proper public consultation.

“The entire creation of a Portmore parish is one of the most vulgar acts of gerrymandering I have ever seen,” Dawes said, likening the map-drawing to European colonial partition at the Berlin Conference. He maintained his own seat was unaffected and that his objection was one of principle, including the loss of Portmore’s tradition of citizen consultation and its directly elected mayor.

Director of Elections Glasspole Brown said the Electoral Commission of Jamaica and Electoral Office of Jamaica were acting on instructions from Parliament’s Boundaries Committee after court orders tied the parish’s coming into force to compliance with Section 67 of the Constitution, which bars constituency boundaries from crossing parish lines. He said parish boundary forums and advisory committees—whose members were nominated by both major parties’ general secretaries—were now consulting, and that the ECJ’s remit covers constituency and electoral division boundaries, not the parish demarcation itself. Ordinary citizens may still make submissions, he added.

Elsewhere on the programme, Central Westmoreland MP Dwayne Vaz said he was relinquishing his post as opposition deputy spokesman on road and works after talks with the party leader last Tuesday. He framed the move as personal, aimed at organising Central Westmoreland—including new divisional chairmen in Savanna-la-Mar and Petersfield—and seeking the PNP Region 6 chairmanship to lobby resources for Westmoreland, Hanover and St. James after Hurricane Melissa. Vaz denied any link to sexual harassment claims by former PNP councillor Julian Chang and said he was not, and had never been, under police investigation over the matter.

The Court Administration Division’s traffic ticket days drive, meant to clear Kingston and St. Andrew Traffic Court backlogs, also drew fire after motorists with warrants said they were held in a bathroom at the National Arena. All Voice Taxi Association president Lorraine Finnegan called the conditions “totally unacceptable,” said his group had prepared letters to the transport and justice ministers and the CAD, and rejected CAD CEO Tricia Cameron Anglin’s reported defence that custody there was an alternative to lock-up. Observer reporting cited by the show said 4,280 tickets were processed one Wednesday for about $30 million in fines.

The broadcast closed with tributes to former cabinet minister and PNP figure Dean Peart, who has died. Commentator Lloyd B. Smith recalled Peart’s five consecutive terms in northwestern Manchester, the wider Peart political lineage, and a legacy of integrity and constituency service.