THE GOVERNING People's National Party (PNP) has a commanding lead over the opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in western parishes, according to the latest Gleaner-Don Anderson poll.
Hanover, Westmoreland, St. Elizabeth, St. James and Trelawny make up the western belt.
Mr. Anderson and his team from Market Research Services Ltd. said the PNP, in office since 1989, "is poised to maintain its hold on these parishes in terms of the number of seats held".
Of those polled, 28.5 per cent said they would vote for the PNP in the upcoming national parliamentary elections. This is 6.3 percentage points more than the 22.2 per cent who favoured the JLP.
However, according to Mr. Anderson, voter turnout in the region is expected to be low as 47 per cent of those interviewed said they did not intend to cast their ballots.
The Market Research Services Ltd. team interviewed 1,119 persons aged 18 years and over in 92 communities islandwide between August 1 and 23. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent.
The PNP dominated the west in the last general election of December 18, 1997, winning 14 of the 15 seats in the five parishes. The lone JLP seat is the St. Elizabeth North West constituency of J.C. Hutchinson. One seat, North West St. James, which was won by former Tourism Minister Francis Tulloch, is vacant. Mr. Tulloch stepped down due to ill health.
The New Jamaica Alliance (NJA), a recently-formed coalition of the National Democratic Movement (NDM), Republican Party of Jamaica (RPJ), and Jamaica Alliance for National Unity, has their biggest support in this section of the island. Three-point-five per cent of those surveyed said they would back the alliance. Less than one per cent of the electorate in the western region will support the United People's Party.
