Ready to be VP | Crawford tired of being mere ‘beast of burden’ for PNP

Member of the People’s National Party (PNP) Senator Damion Crawford yesterday said he is seeking to become one of his party’s vice-presidents, adding that he has more influence outside the organization that many in leadership positions.

“Within the PNP, I am one of the persons most rated by the non-partisan, the man who nuh mek up him mind seh him a PNP, the man who seh him nuh vote, the man who seh him a artiste. They rate nobody in the PNP more than me…” he trumpeted.

“The public don’t rate mi because mi a rasta. Astor Black has been trying for a long time and him never get through. So it’s not the locks. It’s not the young. Nuff young youth out deh, dem don’t get it. It’s because a man can identify with the system that I am fighting.”

Crawford said the PNP would have a hard time identifying even three people who would have more influence than him in the next election.

“In the party, name five people who you expect to be more involved in the next election than me… Mi oh tell yuh, yuh can’t name three. Why should I only be a beast of burden?” he asked.

Not belittling others in PNP

Crawford said his comments should not be seen as belittling.

“Mi a offer miself, and mi naah belittle nobody. At the end of the day, everybody carry something. But mi a say, weh me carry right now, I am putting it to you, is what the party needs at this time,” he declared.

He is also mindful that he may be seen as a show-off. “Sometimes yuh haffi establish yuh pedigree, so yuh nuh treat like mongrel,” added Crawford.

He thinks the vice-president position would make him more effective.

While likening the the PNP to a house, Crawford posited: “A gardener can’t tell people to come in the house, security can’t tell people fi come in the house. If a nuh the owner, it must be the owner son.”

My heart’s desire

Crawford, in the meantime, claimed that he is a performer inside the PNP, and was one when he served as Member of Parliament for East Rural St Andrew.

“Mi work fi deh party yah… Mi naah say mi work more nor less [than others]. Mi a seh mi work. Mi nuh have nuh measurement – no tape fi measure who work more or less, but nobody cannot seh mi don’t work every election…”

Damion Crawford. Photo Credit:

Crawford further said: “Mi decide seh wi haffi get more busy, and one way mi decide mi haffi get more busy is to try and become the vice -president of the People’s National Party… There is, in my heart, a desire to become the vice-president. My father dead and gone, I don’t know how him woulda feel fi know seh fi him bwoy become the vice-president.”

Loose cannon

The PNP member, in the meantime, tried to counter claims especially in political circles that he lacks discipline and is a loose cannon.

“They now say I am a loose cannon; I am indisciplined. Indiscipline is people who si people money and tief it. I have never been accused… I have never heard that people never get what dem deserve when I was MP.

“All I heard [when I was MP] is people might say ‘yuh approach I didn’t agree with’. That’s fine. Yuh nuh have to agree with my approach. But yuh have to look pon mi results, and mi results are there to prove that mi put in effort and mi get outcome,” Crawford further said.

“When a man say loose cannon, I am in the Senate, where is the evidence of loose? When I was the [state] minister, where was the evidence of loose,” he continued while he addressed the Rocky Point Divisional Conference in Clarendon yesterday, June 24.

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