THERE WERE no writings on the walls of the National Arena yesterday morning to tell that thousands of Labourites would be rocking the venue today at the 66th staging of the party's annual conference.

But the writings on Arthur Wint Drive would tell any avid political animal that the top brass of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) would be in town.

Several freshly repaired sections of the road had '19.Nov.09' (Thursday, November 19, 2009) and 'N.W.A' (National Works Agency) inscribed on them in bold yellow, suggesting that the repairs were done just days ahead of today's annual conference.

Efforts to contact Stephen Shaw, manager of communications and customer services at the National Works Agency were unsuccessful.

last year's horror

If the event goes as smoothly as the drive into the venue, the JLP has no need to fear a repeat of the horror that marred the 65th staging of its conference almost a year ago.

When the gun smoke cleared last year, one man had been killed and two others injured after shots were fired backstage. When our news team entered the arena yesterday, it was evident that the organisers meant what they had announced: There would be no backstage at this year's conference. Workmen were hard at work erecting the barricades to ensure that there would be no access to what would have been the backstage area.

Russell Hadeed, chairman of the Labour party's conference committee, told our news team that getting the venue prepared was "the easy part". The true test, he said, would be successfully managing the event. It was evident that Hadeed was feeling the pressure of the need to pull off an incident-free conference.

He confessed that the party was blindsided by last year's shooting. "For 65 years, we never had to search (but), we realise now that these are different times and we have to take the necessary precautions."

Hadeed revealed that the police would descend on the arena at 5 a.m. to conduct a sweep of the venue to ensure that no weapons had been taken in overnight. After that, the Arena would be locked down until the doors are opened for the conference.

police searches

Hadeed added that police and the party's internal security personnel would man the entry points, with the former doing the searches.

On a lighter note, the balcony and the stage area were draped with the national colours: black, gold and green - but mostly green. Judging from the colour scheme of the décor, even the colour blind could tell that the ruling JLP would be staging its annual conference.

It was approximately 10:30 a.m. when our news team arrived at the arena. But the podium, from where Prime Minister Bruce Golding is expected to deliver one of the most eagerly anticipated speeches of his political career, was already in place, while other sections were still being constructed. It seems even the workmen knew that everything else that would transpire at today's event were just small pieces of a larger puzzle that would be defined by what the prime minister had to say.

tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com