PNP chides Warmington for racial comments about Golding

The Opposition People's National Party has expressed disgust at what it says are the "repulsive and racially charged" comments by St Catherine South West Member of Parliament Everald Warmington about its president Mark Golding.

Speaking at a Jamaica Labour Party constituency meeting on Sunday, Warmington pointed to Golding's skin colour and suggested he should seek to become the leader of a European country, as he would never be able to win an election against Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

PNP Chairman Dr Angela Brown-Burke says the comments are "despicable and in poor taste."

She adds that they are as incorrect as they are offensive.

She points out that Golding was born in Jamaica at the University Hospital of the West Indies, arguing that his nationality and heritage are of unquestionable authenticity.

"The fact that Mr Warmington and JLP apologists would seek to use MP Golding's skin colour to incite hate against him, is a most repulsive political stunt which must be rebuffed by society at large," Brown-Burke declares.  

She also states that Golding is from a family that exemplifies the true meaning of service over self.

Brown-Burke points out that Golding's father, Sir John Golding, was integral to Jamaica's recovery from the polio epidemic in the 1950s.

She adds that he established the Mona Rehab Centre (renamed the Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre), the Hope Valley Experimental School and other institutions catering to the needs of persons living with disabilities.

Golding currently chairs the Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre.

Brown-Burke says while the matter is receiving attention from the Political Ombudsman, she hopes Prime Minister Holness and Jamaica Labour Party General Secretary, Dr Horace Chang, will distance the JLP from the offensive statements.

"Although Jamaica has come to expect very little from Mr Warmington with respect to decency and character, we are sickened by this latest display, and the public is even more turned off from the political process," she says.

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