Azan denies calling JLP rival a monkey

“I never called him a monkey.” That’s the response from People's National Party candidate Richard Azan after backlash over a remark he made that allegedly compared Jamaica Labour Party rival Warren Newby to the animal.

Azan is arguing that his comment has been taken out of context.

“I could never call any human being a monkey, I could never call anybody a monkey and when I hear they saying I say black people are monkeys, how I could do that, my mother who I love dearly, is a black woman. How would I call someone, a black person a monkey ?” he questioned. 

“Dem must stop dem damn foolishness,” he added.

At a recent political meeting, Azan, who is seeking to secure his fourth general election win in his native constituency, appeared to compare Newby to a monkey. 

“Yuh know when yuh look pon wah monkey, dat is how him did look,” he said to much applause. “Comrades, all him did short of is a tail because only monkey can behave dat way.” 

However, he told The STAR that it was Newby’s behaviour that he was describing, and not Newby himself. 

“I never called him a monkey, is that he is behaving in a monkey story because at no time that I said I was going to sue him and he called my name to say I say I going to sue him for work that he is doing, and I say a monkey style,” he said. 

The JLP’s young professional arm G2K has demanded an apology from Azan for his “racist” comment, stating that he has resorted to this as a means to “compensate for irrelevance.”

“And I am calling on the leader of the Opposition, the president of the PNP to resign in his candidates because it cannot be while seeking office to lead a country as Jamaica these discriminatory and racist remarks are being made,” G2K president Shayne Kerr said. 

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