Holness to announce elections

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The much anticipated date for general elections here will be announced by Prime Minister Andrew Holness Sunday evening. Holness has confirmed that he will announce the election date during a mass meeting of his ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in the heart of the south central parish of Manchester. The elections will be the 16th since Universal Adult Suffrage, which gave Jamaicans the right to vote for the first time in 1944, Jamaica’s other main political party – the Peoples National Party (PNP – has won eight contested elections since 1944, while the JLP has been successful in seven, including the PNP-boycotted poll of 1983. The JLP won the elections of 1944, 1949, 1962, 1967, 1980, 1983, and 2007 while the PNP won first in 1955, again in 1959, then 1972, 1976, 1989, 1993, 1997, and 2002. Both major political parties will field candidates in all 63 seats.