Op­po­si­tion Leader and po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC, MP, has ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Prime Min­is­ter-elect An­drew Hol­ness on his par­ty’s land­slide vic­to­ry at the polls in Ja­maica on Thurs­day and is of­fer­ing sup­port in any way pos­si­ble “to cre­ate a stronger re­gion.”

In a state­ment to the me­dia yes­ter­day the UNC leader ex­tend­ed best wish­es to Hol­ness and his team for a suc­cess­ful sec­ond term.

She said the Hol­ness gov­ern­ment’s “track record of per­for­mance and plans for the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of Ja­maica clear­ly res­onat­ed with the peo­ple, who gave him and his par­ty a sig­nif­i­cant man­date to de­liv­er on their cam­paign promise to ‘build back stronger.’”

“In­deed,” she said, “the Hol­ness-led ad­min­is­tra­tion must be com­mend­ed for man­ag­ing an eco­nom­ic turn­around, re­duc­ing debt and un­em­ploy­ment in its first term.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said “we find con­fi­dence as neigh­bours who share a long and rich his­to­ry with Ja­maica, that our Caribbean coun­ter­parts are in safe hands, giv­en that through­out his 23-year long Par­lia­men­tary ca­reer, Mr Hol­ness has al­ways placed peo­ple be­fore pol­i­tics, whether it be the peo­ple of his St An­drew West Cen­tral con­stituen­cy, the peo­ple of Ja­maica or those of our re­gion.”

She said the ef­forts of Mr Hol­ness and his last Gov­ern­ment in bat­tling the sig­nif­i­cant ef­fects of the pre­vail­ing pan­dem­ic “must be ac­knowl­edged as, in some of the most tur­bu­lent times in our re­gion­al his­to­ry, they rose to the chal­lenge. It is on this premise we urge the Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter-elect to con­tin­ue with his modus operan­di of leg­is­lat­ing, pol­i­cy-mak­ing and de­vel­op­ment which are geared to­wards the up­lift­ment of the Ja­maican peo­ple as well as that of our re­gion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that dur­ing this time of the coro­n­avirus, “the peo­ple of Ja­maica re­main in our thoughts as we con­tin­ue to bat­tle this pan­dem­ic. Our two na­tions have al­ways en­joyed a close re­la­tion­ship and we re­main close­ly com­mit­ted to the mu­tu­al de­vel­op­ment of both our na­tions and our peo­ple. Unit­ed by a com­mon re­gion­al his­to­ry and more so a sense of Caribbean pride to suc­ceed, my par­ty and I of­fer our sup­port in any way pos­si­ble as we cre­ate a stronger re­gion.”