The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Democratic National Alliance ratified four candidates to compete in next year’s general election during the opening of its new headquarters on East Street South on Friday.

DNA Leader Branville McCartney told The Tribune he panicked recently when he realised how imminent the next election is, prompting him to move forward with the process of promoting his party’s candidates.

Emily Williams, formerly known as the singer “Sweet Emily,” has been ratified for the Marathon constituency.

Bushceme Armbrister, a businessman and pilot, was ratified for the Carmichael constituency.

Accountant Brenda Harris was ratified for Bains Town and Grants Town while Prodesta Moore, an entrepreneur, was ratified for Elizabeth, several years after her failed candidacy for Killarney on behalf of the party.

Mr McCartney said the DNA intends to once again run a full slate of candidates, adding that six more hopefuls will be introduced to the public next month.

He described the process by which the candidates committee of the party chooses its candidates as “serious” and of a high standard.

“We were told after last election that people said they weren’t impressed with some of our candidates,” he said, adding that while he will continue to thank those who ran for the party in 2012, the DNA conducted a post-mortem and has worked significantly to improve its candidate selection.

“Some candidates tonight will be spokespersons for the DNA,” he said, adding that they will speak on behalf of the party in the areas of investments, transport and aviation, culture and social services.

“Unlike the last election, we’ve had a number of people interested in various constituencies so we had to go through the process of determining who is best to represent those constituencies for the DNA and by extension for the country,” he said. “It took a lot of meetings and talking to people in the communities. We were going to introduce candidates from November when we were originally going to have our convention. But unfortunately that was postponed. We thought we better get going on that. I had a panic attack the other night. I got up and said, ‘man March is almost here,’ which means that this election is almost very close, so we are very, very focused on that.”

The event drew a crowd of about 100 people by The Tribune’s estimation.

During his speech on Friday night, Mr McCartney criticised the Christie administration’s record for the last four years, saying that despite riding a populist wave into office, the government has not fulfilled its promises.