Handcart Entry – Linstead duo give up big market day for political show
August 19, 2020
Elaine Gayle and Leslie Hinds
On what is traditionally the biggest market day of the week in Linstead, St. Catherine North West, handcart driver Leslie Hinds ditched his usual job of transporting goods – all in the name of politics.
He yesterday drove his handcart to the vicinity of the Linstead court house to support Hugh Graham, who was being nominated as the People’s National Party (PNP) candidate in St. Catherine North West.
Hinds, who had relatively large portraits of Graham at the front and back of his handcart, also ensured that the vehicle was decorated in the orange colour of the PNP.
He told The Beacon that he has been showing up with his handcart for 20 years whenever there is a nomination exercise.
“Sometimes I even carry the Member of Parliament; I carry the Councillor goh round pon the cart too,” he said.
Hinds, whose entry captured the attention of the relatively large crowd, continued: “This cart is 20 years of service; I have been doing this for my party. I just love my party and it does anything I ask them for. If I don’t get it, I would not quarrel. I would go and wait until another set of people get what they want.”
The handcart worker added that voting for the PNP is a family tradition, which he has to maintain.
“My father, my mother, my grand-people were PNP; I just born and grow in the tradition; I don’t care; I don’t business if I don’t get a dollar from them; I am still a PNP; this is the root of my father; I will never take a trip to another party,” he declared while describing his party’s candidate as ‘generous and good’.
The woman who rode the handcart, Elaine Gayle, who is better known as Angella, disclosed that she is a vendor in Linstead Market, but she could not have missed the political show.
“I am always voting for the PNP. Even when I say I am not going to vote, I am still there,” she told The Beacon.
She explained that she saw Hinds decorate the cart – as he usually does on Nomination Day, and so she took the opportunity to reach the nomination centre in style.
“He always fix up his cart, and so we always love to bring off something. That’s the month I was born – to always bring off activities,” Gayle reasoned, adding that she is a staunch supporter of the PNP.
She also spoke highly of the party’s candidate, Graham. “He is so good; he is real to the people. I don’t speak to him as yet, but I see what he does for our district, our area and our town,” Gayle further said.
Meanwhile, Graham, who served up to recently as councillor for the Lluidas Vale Division in the constituency, is making his first attempt to becoming Member of Parliament for St. Catherine North West.
His opponents are Newton Amos of the Jamaica Labour Party and independent candidate Gene Guthrie.
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