PNP’s Vice Presidents, Party Chairman Resigns

Four top-tier members of the opposition People’s National Party have resigned from their post with immediate effect. Chairman Phillip Paulwell, and three of the Party’s Vice Presidents have tendered their resignations. The Vice Presidents are Damion Crawford, Mikhael Phillips, and Dr Wykeham Mcneill.

Their resignation comes as the members say they met and discussed ways to stem the deepening rift in the Party.  They say the threat of another internal leadership election has become more evident.

They outline that the leader has declared his lack of trust for members of the Party who did not support his presidential bid. They also accused the Opposition Leader, Mark Golding, of instead seeking to surround himself with people who openly endorsed his bid.

They say there has been a level of underhandedness crippling the Party due to this style of leadership. The high-ranking party officials say they’ll continue to support constituency development and serving the Jamaican people in other ways.

Information that was sent to our newsroom reads as follows:

We had engaged the wider leadership of the Party in good faith negotiation to avoid a further widening of the internal rift, recognizing that the Party Leader had declared publicly that the Party could not countenance another divisive internal election at this time. 
We arrived at this decision today recognizing the risk of another internal election before the wounds of the last presidential elections were adequately healed. 
The discussion within the Party continued for more than three weeks, with some officers volunteering to step aside for the sake of unity. However, we concluded that the sincerity of certain members of the leadership was not forthcoming and that the minimalist effort towards unity was a charade that is inimical to a genuine pursuit of unity.
Despite all the reasonable efforts to broker a platform of unity, there were otherwise covert attempts to sabotage the goal of peace and harmony with a plan to horde the available positions in line with previous public statements made by the Leader, who pronounced a lack of trust for persons who did not support him in his campaign leadership and his preference to surround himself with only individuals who overtly endorsed his candidacy.
Therefore, to continue our sincere efforts to preserve our beloved Party, which has served this nation well and has been at the forefront of much of its development, we have decided to resign from our current positions and turn our efforts towards rebuilding the constituency organizations.

The most recent … of the PNP has been the disunity that has plagued the Party. The level of disunity has deepened since the most recent internal election, where the victor has seemingly NOT acknowledged that unity is ultimately the responsibility of the victorious.
We further believe that the disunity and display of underhandedness have crippled the spirit and effectiveness of the Unity Committee. 
Despite this unfortunate development, we are committed to the continued progress of the Party. To that end, we will work to advance the constituency organizations and develop ideas, policies, and programmes around which the society can coalesce to address the issues and serve the Jamaican people.

Damion Crawford – Vice President
Wyckham McNeill – Vice President
Mikael Phillips – Vice President
Phillip Paulwell – Party Chairman