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PNP and JLP ‘are not the same’, says Dayton Campbell

Loop News

September 18, 2022 9:18 PM ET

3 mins read

General Secretary of the People’s National Party (PNP) Dr Dayton Campbell was on a mission when he approached the podium at the party’s 84th annual conference on Sunday, and he did not mince his words in dispelling what he termed “a lie from the pit of hell”.

Delivering his message in under five minutes, Campbell made it clear that the People’s National Party and the “other party” — the Jamaica Labour Party — are not the same

“They are trying to say that there is no difference between the PNP and that other party, and it is a lie from the pit of hell because we are not the same,” said Campbell to thunderous applause.

According to the PNP general secretary, the Opposition PNP and the governing JLP are not the same because they would not allow other governments “to tell us who our friends should be”.

“We determine who we are friends with based on their relationship with us, and so we welcome our visiting friends here today because the PNP is a regional and an international organisation,” Campbell claimed.

Taking a swipe at the Government for its loan offer to students studying in Ukraine to return home from the war-threatened country earlier this year, Campbell said:

We are not the same because the PNP does not offer loans to students when bombs are dropping and people are dying. The PNP send money to bring them home. We are not the same.

Campbell also argued that the PNP “put insurance in place to protect you from high oil prices”, pointing to a policy that has been adopted by St Vincent and the Grenadines, leading to that country reportedly having the “lowest gas price in the region”.

Minister of Finance in St Vincent and the Grenadines Camilio Gonsalves spoke to this on a platform at a PNP constituency conference last Sunday.

The PNP general secretary then turned his attention to the leadership of the JLP.

“We are not the same because we don’t have a leader who run round from constituency to open one deggeh, deggeh, deggeh house. We open housing schemes, we build communities; we are for the people,” he insisted, a point that was again met with applause.

“We are not the same because we do not have a leader who feel like he must come and wear clothes and call himself ‘brodevil’, or bro whatever,” claimed Campbell, who added that the PNP leader is one of “substance and character”.

“We are not the same. We are a progressive party, we are the People’s National Party,” the party’s general secretary said.