PNP President Portia Simpson Miller greets Peter Bunting, the party's new general secretary, at the Jamaica Conference Centre yesterday. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

The People's National Party (PNP) forewent party custom yesterday in appointing Member of Parliament Peter Bunting its new general secretary.

Bunting, the party's MP for Central Manchester, was named general secretary after being nominated from the floor during a meeting of the party's National Executive Council (NEC) at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.

There were no elections as former General Secretary Dr D.K. Duncan had earlier withdrawn from the race, after being nominated along with Bunting earlier this month.

During a press briefing after yesterday's meeting, party Chairman Robert Pickersgill confirmed Dr Duncan's withdrawal came at the request of party President Portia Simpson Miller.

Two-pronged reason

Dr Duncan announced his withdrawal from the race on Saturday, saying he had been guided by the party's recently completed appraisal report which recommended that a long-standing convention, not to have an elected MP serve as general secretary, be honoured.

Donald Buchanan, who announced his resignation from the post of general secretary last year, had only accepted the role after already announcing he would not be running for a seat in Parliament in the 2007 general election.

Buchanan had replaced Colin Campbell, who quit in the wake of questionable transactions with Dutch oil trader Trafigura. Campbell was at the time a senator and was preceded by Burchell Whiteman, also a senator.

Despite Dr Duncan's rationale for stepping aside, PNP executives suggested yesterday afternoon that there was nothing objectionable about breaking the custom of MPs not running for general secretary.

"While it is a convention, it allows the party leader and the party leadership the discretion, when the situation so demands, to depart from that convention," Bunting told journalists yesterday. "While the convention will be honoured, more often than not, from time to time ... the leadership has thought it prudent to vary from that."

Bunting, who also serves as the PNP's shadow minister on industry, commerce and investment, added that he would rally a team around him as he plays all three roles in the party.

At the top of his priorities will be the restructuring of the PNP, which is still healing after a divisive leadership race in 2006 that placed Simpson Miller at the helm of the party.

"The PNP, whenever it is in office, the party organisation suffers by virtue of the fact that the entire leadership of the party is preoccupied primarily with government positions," Bunting told journalists. "And because we are coming out of an unprecedented 18 and a half years of incumbency, then I think it would be also fair to say that the party has suffered from the neglect of not having its top leadership focus primarily on the party's business for such a long period of time."