Dr Peter Phillips

Daraine Luton and Arthur Hall, Staff Reporters

THE PEOPLE'S NATIONAL Party (PNP) is on tenterhooks today as it prepares for what could be the official start of the challenge to its president, Portia Simpson Miller.

PNP officials were cautious last week as they refused to confirm or deny reports that senior vice-president, Dr Peter Phillips, would use a divisional conference in Harbour View, St Andrew, this evening to announce plans to challenge Simpson Miller at the party's annual conference in September.

But The Sunday Gleaner has confirmed that well-known Phillips backers were actively drumming up support for their candidate. PNP sources also pointed to the significance of the constituency where this evening's divisional conference is being held.

East Rural St Andrew was marked in the Jamaica Labour Party's column in the 2007 election, but the defeated PNP candidate was Mikael Phillips, the son of Dr Phillips. Despite his loss to Joseph Hibbert, young Phillips remains an active worker in the constituency.

Last week, PNP chairman Robert Pickersgill told The Sunday Gleaner that the party would be doing "everything" to ensure it did not suffer from disunity should there be a challenge to Simpson Miller. The usually outspoken Pickersgill was coy as he declined to comment on the level of unity now existing in the party.

He also refused to comment on the possibility of a challenge to the leadership of Simp-son Miller at the PNP's annual conference in September. "Sufficient on to the day. I am not going down that road. I am not commenting on possibilities," Pickersgill said.

He was supported by Peter Bunting, the party's general secretary, who told The Sunday Gleaner that if there were challenges, the secretariat would have to constantly remind people of the democratic tradition of the party.

Challenge a good thing

"The interest of the party supersedes any personal ambitions an individual may have, and we would prevail upon them to act consistent with both the tradition and the interest of the party," Bunting said.

Former PNP vice-president, Karl Blythe, argued last week that a challenge for the presidency was good, as it would settle the leadership question in the party.

The PNP is yet to recover from a bruising 2006 contest which split the party into camps allied to the four persons who contested that race. In the lead up to the 2007 general election, the party declared its internal unity but behind the scenes, there were clear signs that all was not well.

The disunity was also identified by a review team as one of the reasons for the party's defeat at the polls. Simpson Miller led the PNP to within 3,000 votes and three seats of forming the government for a fifth consecutive term in the September 2007 general election.

Strong support for Simpson Miller to remain as PNP president was recorded by pollster Bill Johnson in May. His findings revealed 45 per cent support for Simpson Miller and 27 per cent for Phillips.

Nearly two-thirds of the people backing Simpson Miller were PNP supporters. In contrast, about 20 per cent of Comrades backed Phillips as a likely president of the PNP.

Contacted last week, Phillips repeated what has become his stock answer to the question of any plan to challenge Simpson Miller: "Thousands of Comrades have had discussions urging me (to run for presidency of the party), and sometime soon, I am going to have to speak to the party and the country and when I speak, all things will be clear."

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com.