JAMAICA Labour Party (JLP) parliamentarians, still incensed at last Wednesday’s coffin incident at a People’s National Party (PNP) rally in Clarendon, yesterday demanded that Prime Minister P J Patterson discipline Basil Burrell, the member of parliament for South-East Clarendon, who they accuse of involvement in the action.

“… nothing short of a public reprimand and disciplinary action from the prime minister of the offending PNP candidate would be appropriate,” the Opposition parliamentarians said in a news release yesterday. “Particularly in light of the prime minister’s public statement that any candidate who signs (the code of political conduct) and commits a breach will be subject to disciplinary action.”

The PNP publicly apologised to JLP leader Edward Seaga and his wife, Carla, Friday after PNP supporters at a party rally in Four Paths, Clarendon were televised hefting a makeshift green coffin on their shoulders. It featured a drawing of a baby and the words: “Pampers, Seaga baby, dead.”

In a letter to Mrs Seaga, who is due to have her baby this month, Maxine Henry-Wilson, the PNP’s general-secretary, said the incident was “totally out of keeping with accepted standards of decency, and we have expressed this to our candidates and supporters”.

Also on Friday, Patterson, in his address at the official opening of the Negril to Montego Bay leg of the North Coast Highway, said that any PNP candidate who signs the code of conduct and commits a breach after Nomination Day “will be subject to disciplinary action by the party”.

The PNP has said that the action at the meeting was carried out without the knowledge or approval of the party’s leadership. However, yesterday, the JLP parliamentarians insisted that Burrell, in whose constituency the incident took place, should be punished and said that they had “new information” to indicate that he had foreknowledge.

According to the JLP, one of its senior parliamentarians, Mike Henry, who represents Central Clarendon, said that he “and others in Palmers Cross” saw the makeshift coffin at Burrell’s home “under a coolie plum tree”.

Last night, Henry told the Sunday Observer that he had seen the makeshift coffin at Burrell’s home “three or four times over the last couple of weeks”. He said, though, that he was unable to read what was written on it because he was never near enough to do so.

Burrell and other PNP officials could not be contacted for comment last night.

Henry also charged that the ‘coffin’ was paraded in PNP motorcades throughout other Clarendon constituencies.

The JLP said it would be sending “this new evidence” to the political ombudsman for his action as stipulated under the regulations of the political code of conduct.