(Jamaica Star) Michael McLeod’s efforts to help to wrest the St Thomas Eastern constituency from the self-styled ‘six star general’, Dr Fenton Ferguson, is proving costly.
This as McLeod, councillor for the Dalvey division, said one of the young voters he convinced to vote for his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) candidate, and eventual winner Michelle Charles, could be without a roof over his head. The young man’s mother allegedly promised to evict him because of his allegiance to the JLP.
“Right now I have to be looking somewhere to rent for a young man because his mother said that she is gonna put him out,” McLeod said as he marshalled voters outside of Dalvey Primary School. “I am doing my best to get out the voters in my division but it is hard, because some of them are looking for handouts.”
McLeod, and councillors before him, had tried to unseat Ferguson, who had been the member of parliament for the constituency since 1993.
“This is one division that Doctor [Ferguson] has always had problems with and he has admitted it, but we are trying our best,” McLeod said yesterday before the close of voting. “The people need a change because he has been here for so long and nothing is happening.” The people did vote for a change yesterday as Charles created an upset, unseating Ferguson by 6,126 votes to 5,392. Ferguson was seeking his seventh hold on the constituency. He last won in 2016 by 1,661 votes.
