Dabdoub

WEST PORTLAND is a constituency from which many People's National Party (PNP) parliamentary hopefuls stayed away in the 2007 general election.

Doreen Forbes, who was first selected to represent the party, pulled out even before the campaign had gathered steam.

Errol Ennis, then incumbent member of parliament (MP), had done four terms and announced he would no longer run. The PNP needed a candidate out east, but few would venture there; the terrain was too challenging and the problems of winning the constituency were too great.

However, Abe Dabdoub would step up to the plate. A year earlier, he had dumped his green robes. He hesitated for a moment before donning the PNP colours, and then raced off to West Portland. His former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) colleague, Daryl Vaz, had 'made bed' in that constituency for some time and opinion polls and anecdotal information suggested that he was heading to a comfortable victory for the JLP, which had not won the seat since 1980.

Anecdotal information

A bitter fight between supporters of Vaz and Dabdoub ensued and threatened to, in the words of Vaz, "get ugly." The police threatened to ban campaigning there but while mass gatherings were important to Dabdoub, he had a super plan in his back pocket.

Dabdoub circulated notices in the constituency, charging that Vaz was not eligible to sit in Parliament as he had pledged allegiance to a foreign power. Dabdoub's notices were shot down by Director of Elections Danville Walker who issued two press releases stating that all candidates had been duly nominated.

Dabdoub warned, to no avail, that persons would waste their votes if they voted for Vaz. At the end of the polls on September 3, Vaz was the man smiling. Official reports had him winning West Portland for the JLP by 944 votes. He polled 6,977 votes to Dabdoub's 6,033 votes in an election where 72.8 per cent of the electorates exercised their franchise. The national voter turnout was 60 per cent.

Challenged his eligibility

An attorney-at-law, Dabdoub raced to court, challenging the eligibility of Vaz to sit in Parliament. Dabdoub said that Vaz was an American citizen, a claim he proved in court. Under the Constitution, Vaz was disqualified as a member of parliament, ruled Chief Justice Zaila McCalla.

In his two previous trips to the House of Representatives, Dabdoub won the elections at the polls once. His first outing was in 1997 when he challenged the PNP's Phyllis Mitchell for North East St Catherine. Mitchell polled 4,750 votes to his 4,713. Dabdoub rushed to court claiming that the PNP candidate had benefited from chicanery. After occupying the seat in Parliament for four years, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment that Mitchell vacate the seat.

In the 2002 general elections, Dabdoub, however, made sure that the courts were not necessary. He beat Mitchell by 680 votes.