 A record 197 candidates contested the election, with a new political party, the National Democratic Movement, standing in most of the seats.The National Democratic Movement had been founded in 1995 by a former Labour Party chairman, Bruce Golding, after a dispute over the leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party.The 1997 election was mainly free of violence as compared to previous elections, although it began with an incident where rival motorcades from the main parties were fired on.