Lambert returns to mountaintop with ‘head high’ - Says he has put ganja on the agenda as economic driver for Clarendon

Having left his "mountaintop" where he was "minding my own business, which is the people's business," Dereck Lambert not only suffered a heavy defeat in Monday's by-election in South East Clarendon, but he lost the $15,000 he paid to be nominated.

Lambert needed to get one-eighth (12.5 per cent) of the total number of votes cast during the election in order to get back his deposit. However, he fell short by 222, as he polled only 741 votes, representing 10 per cent of the total votes cast. He would have got back his money had he polled 963 votes.

Pearnel P. Charles Jr, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) candidate, won the seat after polling 6,846, which is 89 per cent of the votes.

"If it has one per cent (of the votes), it would be worth it," Lambert told THE WEEKEND STAR, adding that his message of titled lands for the landless and a ganja-led economy for the Vere Plains resonated across the constituency. "What we achieved, if the deposit was $100,000, me wouda feel good same way."

"I come out with me head held high. People a talk 'bout numbers, but that irrelevant to me. I achieved my objectives," he said.

Lambert, on nomination day, said "I was on a mountaintop, minding my own business, which is the people's business," but was compelled to answer the call to run in the election.

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He said the use of the term 'mountain' was literal and figurative, relating to both farming as well as being in a space, "musing with the God" before he was disturbed by the noise caused by the PNP's decision not to contest the election after Rudyard Spencer's sudden resignation.

A ganja advocate and trade unionist who lost to Spencer in the 2011 general election by 107 votes, Lambert told voters that sugar was dead and it is ganja's time. A sugar-dependent area, South East Clarendon has suffered significant economic fallout since the closure of Monymusk Sugar Factory in the 2018-2019 crop season.

"The people understand that this is an alternative to sugar on the plains ... . You can image we get even 10,000 acres and set up a system?" he reasoned.

Lambert said that the loss of his $15,000 deposit is insignificant, stating "that would have been gravy if I had won, and everybody now knows why I did not". He blamed the People's National Party's organisation in the constituency, led by Patricia Duncan Sutherland, for running a campaign against him, even though the party took the decision not to contest the by-election.

"If I didn't have that obstruction, mi win the seat and in Parliament. The people were confused because there was a campaign, more than the JLP, against me," Lambert said.

The 70-year-old Lambert, who claims to practise a political guerilla-type system, said that he cannot be beaten in South East Clarendon by any candidate as long as the elections are fair.