Juli­et Hol­ness, the wife of Ja­maica’s prime min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness, has been elect­ed as the coun­try’s Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

She had been Deputy Speak­er since the Ja­maica Labour Par­ty re­turned to pow­er fol­low­ing its land­slide vic­to­ry in the Sep­tem­ber 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Act­ing leader of Gov­ern­ment busi­ness Del­roy Chuck on Tues­day nom­i­nat­ed Hol­ness for the job as par­lia­men­tary ref­er­ee and it was sec­ond­ed by Phillip Paulwell, the leader of Op­po­si­tion busi­ness in the house.

The elec­tion fol­lowed the res­ig­na­tion of Marisa Dal­rym­ple-Philib­ert in the wake of a rul­ing by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion that she be charged for al­leged­ly mak­ing false state­ments on her statu­to­ry de­c­la­ra­tions.

The charges con­cern her de­c­la­ra­tions from 2015 to 2021 and her fail­ure to de­clare a $6 mil­lion ve­hi­cle.

The rul­ing Ja­maica Labour par­ty (JLP) en­joys a sig­nif­i­cant ma­jor­i­ty in the 63-mem­ber Par­lia­ment win­ning 49 seats in the Sep­tem­ber 3, 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion while the main op­po­si­tion was vic­to­ri­ous in the re­main­ing 14 con­stituen­cies.