Ewarton | JLP caretaker not sure if he will contest next local gov’t election

Ewarton | JLP caretaker not sure if he will contest next local gov’t election

November 19, 2020 0 By Horace Mills
Millholland Barker of the JLP

Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) candidate caretaker in the Ewarton Division of St. Catherine North West, Millholland Barker, said he is yet to decide if he will represent the political organization in the upcoming Local Government Election.

He told The Beacon: “I have to make a decision soon. We have people who can represent just the same -even maybe better than I have. I still have about another three or four months to look at that. My own feeling is that maybe somebody else could.”

Barker was defeated by Beverly Jobson-Grant of the People’s National Party (PNP) on the two occasions that he represented the JLP in the division.

However, he made significant gains and narrowed the margin of victory attained by Jobson-Grant.

In the 2012 Local Government Election, Barker polled 578 votes and lost by 675. In the following election, which was held in 2016, he amassed 992 votes to lose by 162.

The PNP’s Jobson-Grant, a former educator, is retiring from representational politics.

Her successor as candidate is Donald Tinling Jr., a Ewarton businessman who was 32 years old when he was selected in June.

Barker of the JLP holds a managerial position in the private security industry, and is a former teacher and insurance sales representative.

The Ewarton Division is located in the PNP stronghold of St. Catherine North-West, where Hugh Graham of the PNP is Member of Parliament.

In the last General Election, which was held on September 3, Graham defeated Newton Amos of the JLP.

Commenting on the outcome of that election, Barker, who recently was hospitalized, said he was ill during the election campaign and did not get an opportunity to campaign effectively with Amos.

He stated that, if he had been on the campaign trail, Amos would have emerged victor. “We fell down here [in Ewarton] because people were wondering what happened to me and all types of rumors went out,” Barker further said.


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