Golding’s daughter ‘immune’ to criticism

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Prime Minister Bruce Golding has been going through a battering by his critics since he took over as Jamaica’s eighth political leader in September 2007.His family usually becomes concerned when the going gets tough for the prime minister, but one member has got so used to the utterances of his critics, that such comments hardly bother her anymore.“In some way I have become immune to it, because I grew up in politics,” Golding’s younger daughter Ann-Merita told the Sunday Observer during her recent stay here.Ann-Merita, who is reading for her doctorate in audiology from the Nova Southeastern University in the United States, said that she had moved from a position in which criticism of her father would affect her, to a more rock-hard state.“From (when) I was born the bashing has been going on. I would be in the nail salon or the hairdresser and hear people talking about him negatively, not knowing that we are related.“It has no effect on me now. When it has an effect on me is when people say, ‘your father’ not Bruce the Prime Minister. When you take it to a personal level . . . and I had a falling-out with somebody recently, an acquaintance because during the thing in West Kingston they twitted something on Twitter, not about my father, but about Ann-Merita, Bruce’s daughter, and I have nothing to do with politics.” (Jamaica Observer)