Holness: I want to lead my country

Posted by Yardie Luke on September 6, 2010 under Jamaica Politics | Comments are off for this article

HE is not putting his cards on the table just yet, regarding his strategy to become prime minister of Jamaica one day, but rising star Andrew Holness is willing to admit one thing: “I want to lead my country.”

“If I had said no, you would say I am lying,” the education minister admitted to the Observer last Friday.

While declining to say more in terms of his own climb up the ladder to fulfil his dream, Holness said that the issue of leading the ruling Jamaica Labour Party now was not up for discussion.

“The issue of leadership is not a question in the Jamaica Labour Party right now. Of course, people have it (leadership) in their minds. It is a political party and everybody has ambitions. But right now, I am focussed on the things that I want to achieve in education. I think that they are far more important than any personal ambitions that I may have,” he said.

“My friends have said to me, you are doing all these things, what happens if you lose the next election. How are you going to survive? But I have never really been one to think of my own personal things like business. I have always been politically motivated. I am motivated by what I am doing now,” he explained.

“I wasn’t called to do law, or banking or anything like that. I was called to do this (politics),” said Holness, who is also member of parliament for West Central St Andrew, leader of government business in the House of Representatives and the JLP’s public relations top man.

Responding to calls for Prime Minister Bruce Golding to resign over his handling of the hiring of a United States law firm in relation to the extradition of former Tivoli Gardens don Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, Holness said that there was no need for Golding to step aside.

“The person who is calling for him to resign has to make a judgement as to whether or not the population that elected him has lost total confidence in him,” Holness argued. “So I am sure the prime minister would be of the opinion that there is an element in the society that would have lost confidence in him, but I don’t think that we can say that the majority of the society has lost confidence in him.

“Indeed, the PSOJ (Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica), the churches, the civil groups that represent the broad areas of society have not called for his resignation. They have asked for atonement, and the political party that he leads has also said that he should atone — apologise and atone. We are trying to do everything for him to atone. There are items that have been placed on the agenda that must be achieved, like de-garrisonisation, campaign financing… those things would be part of the atonement package,” Holness said. SOURCE