Rose Town resident braves illness to support candidate

Every step sent pain shooting through her spine, but 54-year-old Merlin Harrison refused to stay home on Nomination Day.

Hobbled by arthritis and battling a slipped disc for the past four years, she pushed slowly through the noisy crowd at the St Andrew Southern nomination centre on Cross Roads, clutching her side as flags waved and horns blared. The bodies pressing in around her made each movement harder, yet her voice cut clear above the noise: she had come to stand for her party.

"I am voting for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) for my children and grandchildren future," she declared, pausing to steady herself with her stick.

"Mi nuh wah dem grow up an face di same struggle mi did," she explained. "If mi vote can help move di country a step forward, mi a do it fi dem." She added, "We are going to give Andrew Holness a third term because he is moving the country forward, not backward."

Harrison, a resident of Rose Town, has three grandchildren and more than 50 years of loyalty to her party behind her. Her support, she explained, is not a passing choice, but a lifelong bond.

"From mi was a little girl mi hear mi parents a talk Labourite, an' mi carry it straight through," she said with a faint smile. "Some people change party like shoes, but mi cya switch."

Around her, a small cluster of Labourites waved flags and sang, their chants fighting to rise above the midday traffic on Cross Roads. There were relatively few loyalists in green, supporting their candidate Carlton Allen. Still, Harrison said their presence mattered as she chanted, "We going forward, not backward."

Her words cut against the electoral arithmetic. St Andrew Southern is People's National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding's stronghold, a seat he has held since 2017. In the 2020 general election, Golding secured 7,881 votes (87.8 per cent) to the JLP's 1,094 (12.2 per cent), making it one of the PNP's safest constituencies. Yet for Harrison, showing up with her handful of fellow Labourites was about principle, not numbers.

"We know we cya win him," she said, adjusting her stance as the crowd jostled her small frame, "but we nah give him the one-man vote."

Her loyalty runs deep but so does her pain, which shoots from her knees into her back; it is barely eased by medication.

"It's not going well at all," she admitted. "The painkiller not really helping. It start in my right knee, then the left, then straight to my back and that's it." Still, she refuses to let the pain stop her.

"Mi body weak, but mi spirit strong. Politics a nuh joke fi me, it a part a mi life," she said firmly. "Mi cya sit down and watch election pon TV. Mi haffi come out, even if mi walk slow-slow."

"Mi take painkiller because this cya stop me from come out and support mi party," she said, gripping her stick tightly. "As long as breath inna mi body, mi a vote Labourite."

She suggested that her determination reflects a broader resilience among the elderly in her community.

"Mi see nuff old people inna mi community weh cya even walk good, but dem still waan fi come out," she said. "Dem nuh waan lef out di decision."

But she also offered a sobering reflection.

"There is a lot of old people I see in my community that needs help," she said quietly. "Sometimes is like we get lef' behind."