The hierarchy of both the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) are planning to pull out all the stops to win the upcoming local government by-election in the Cornwall Mountain division.

“As you can see by the turnout that we have here, we are taking this by-election very, very seriously,” JLP general secretary Karl Samuda told the Observer West on Monday, shortly after the party’s candidate, Keith Barnes, was nominated to contest the seat which was vacated by the death of late PNP councillor, Michael Smith.

Samuda was referring to the large gathering of party supporters and members of the JLP’s executive, which included its chairman Dr Kenneth Baugh, deputy leaders Dr Horace Chang and James Robertson and agriculture minister Dr Christopher Tufton, who had gathered at the nomination centre at the Coke’s View Primary School in Whithorn to support Barnes’ candidacy.

Samuda, apparently buoyed by the JLP’s recent successes in the West Portland and North East St Catherine by-elections, added that the party would be putting in place its “well-oiled” political machinery which he said, is “unmatched by anything” in the past.

Expressing confidence that Barnes would be victorious, the general secretary noted that the campaign will include visits to all the communities in the division by members of the party’s hierarchy.

“We will be moving across the division to make sure that our candidate is well known by all the residents,” he emphasised.

Some 6,976 electors are eligible to cast their ballots at the 32 polling stations across the division in the July 14 poll.

People’s National Party (PNP’s) chairman, Robert Pickersgill who was among the large number of PNP officials participating in the nomination day activities, noted too, that his party is not taking the by-election lightly.

We can’t afford not to take this (by-election) seriously; particularly after losing two (West Portland and North East St Catherine) recently,” Pickersgill said.

Apart from Pickersgill, the slew of PNP officials in attendance were party leader Portia Simpson Miller, general secretary Peter Bunting; former general secretary, Donald Buchanan; vice- president emeritus Roger Clarke; Westmoreland MP’s Luther Buchanan, and Wykeham McNeil; MP for Eastern Hanover, Dr D K Duncan, as well as mayor of Savanna-la-Mar, Bertel Moore.

Meanwhile, both candidates – the 63-year-old Vanriel, who is a former councilor for Petersfield and the Cornwall Mountain divisions and Barnes who won the seat in the 2003 local government polls by a majority of nine votes, but later lost by 76 in the 2007 polls, are also expressing confidence.

In the 2007 local government polls, the PNP won all 14 parish council divisions up for grabs in the parish of Westmoreland. And in the general elections earlier that year, the party defeated the JLP in the three parliamentary seats in the parish.