Photo courtesy of the JLP, Timothy Scarlett, Jamaica Labour Party candidate for Manchester North West.
Published in the Jamaica Gleaner: Sunday | August 19, 2007
Mark Beckford, Staff Reporter
If Dean Peart of the People's National Party (PNP) were a local football team and the constituency of North Western Manchester the premier league trophy, he would have begun a dynasty with four straight wins in general elections since 1989.
Furthermore, Peart's father, Ernest, also created a dynasty in that constituency with political victories from 1967 to 1976.
Those are the odds stacked against Timothy Scarlett, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) candidate challenging Peart for the North Western Manchester seat.
Despite these challenges, and more, such as his late entry (June) into the race owing to the death of then candidate Clinton Dietrich in late April, Scarlett is not daunted.
"Everybody is entitled to their opinion. Looking at that, one would get that impression, but that doesn't perturb me," he tells The Sunday Gleaner.
In fact, he continues: "My chances are very good and I am going to win."
Change
Scarlett, who up until Dietrich's death, was Dietrich's campaign manager, believes the people of North Western Manchester want a change.
He also says the poor performance of Peart in the constituency will lead to his victory, and his party's chances of wrestling the seat, which was won by the JLP's Stafford Haughton in 1980. The PNP did not contest the 1983 snap election.
"Now is the time that people are looking for a change. He has failed the constituency in many ways. They are disappointed with his performance; he has not looked after the needs of the people."
Scarlett, who is the head of Power Services Company Ltd., in Mandeville, and who operates a training school, says he hopes to expand on the work he has done there.
With less then two weeks to go to the general election, Scarlett will have to overturn a 2,000 vote deficit, which carried Peart to victory in the 2002 General Election. But until then, his belief in himself will not wane as he says: "Peart has won against candidates who are not of my calibre."
