Voting behaviour and campaign impact

Published in the Jamaica Gleaner: Sunday | August 12, 2007

Robert Buddan

The candidates have been nominated, the manifestos launched, and the national debates held. The elections are now just two weeks away and those two weeks will decide who wins in a race that might be relatively close, as they were in 2002. We can now only heed the call for calm elections by Bishop Herro Blair, the Political Ombudsman.

The feedback from the debates, responses to the manifestos, reactions to the campaign messages, and reports from the polls will help the parties to fine-tune their strategies from hereon to make their final push in order to capitalise on what is working. It is all up to the campaigns and ultimately everything will rest on how the voters respond.

During the Carl Stone era, four propositions had emerged about voting behaviour in Jamaica. One was that no party had entered a campaign period leading in the polls and ended up losing. The second was that Jamaicans made up their minds early about who they were going to vote for. The third was that Jamaicans tended to vote as one electorate so that victories are decisive. The fourth was that Jamaicans voted more for party leaders than for particular candidates.

If these positions still hold they would favour the PNP. It is not that campaigns don't matter but that they could simply neutralise each other. It is not that the undecided voters cannot make a difference but rather that they generally fall in line with the trends established by the voters who have decided.

However, things do not have to remain the same. In the 2002 elections the margin of victory had returned to the pre-Stone era. Many seem to expect that the split in 2007 will be similar to that of 2002, which would mean a continuation of this earlier trend. The JLP can take heart that in the pre-Stone era it had more success. Voters did not vote as one electorate and there were important regional differences and regional strengths enjoyed by the parties. Margins of leads were small enough to be reversible.

Improved voting system

Voter support is also more likely to be truly reflected by improvements in the electoral system. From 2002, the administration of the electoral system has provided a truer expression of voting behaviour, and this is expected to continue in 2007. Voters' lists are cleaner, there is less over-voting, and laws are now in place to punish open voting. Election workers are also of better quality. These corrections will redefine how we understand voting behaviour, measured in terms of the final count.

Beginning in 2002, the size of a party's popular support, seat margins won and balance of seats won have seen corrections to the point that the overall balance of strength between the parties is as competitive as in the period from 1949 to 1972. This is reinforced by the fact that the parties are more similar as the kinds of pragmatic parties they were in the 20-year period then. They still enjoy stability of support because a majority of voters continue to vote on the basis of traditional family identification and they continue to attract 99 per cent of the votes cast. The PNP, however, has enjoyed the better of this competition over the years.

But again, things do not remain the same. The parties have new leaders, significant numbers of new voters have joined the electorate, population movements between constituencies and countries change the make-up and stability of the electorate, and the country faces new challenges of governance. These new challenges of governance cause us to talk about toll rates because we have highways. We can talk about cellular phone licenses only because we have a liberalised telecommunications sector. We can talk about the environmental impact of tourism because tourism has been growing so rapidly and we can talk about contracts because of the growth of a market of private contractors. These new challenges of governance all come with modernisation.

The question is whether the more established patterns will play out or whether the new factors will overwhelm them. Many voters have their established identities and many are yet to have any. The new party leaders are still to prove their records and the parties have to convince the voters that do not have strong identification that they have what it takes to meet the new challenges.

Proof of leadership

To do this, the new party leaders have much to prove. In the mid-1990s, a thesis developed amongst dissidents in the JLP that the party could not win another election under Mr. Seaga. Mr. Golding emerged as the person they felt could win elections. He did not do so for the NDM, and now he must prove he can do so for the JLP. A secondary thesis also emerged, that a party needed more money than itscompetitor to win elections. Mr. Golding was seen as the person who would attract big money since Mr. Seaga was supposedly alienating it.

The JLP has taken this dangerous route before, getting too close to big money and separating itself from its labour base in the 1950s and 1960s. This has caused new controversy in the party about 'tainted money' in party elections, along with Mr. Abe Dabdoub's charge that the party has been taken over by big money since Golding became its leader. This is now confirmed by the view that some of the most powerful persons in the country are financing the JLP. It begs the question, who is the driver. Mr. Golding is on record as being against the automatic disclosure of private campaign financing and has refused to co-operate with Mr. Dabdoub's parliamentary Bill aimed at achieving transparency.

Money is important to build image. To address the problem of his credibility Mr. Golding is heard to say, "I give you my word" at the end of one of his ads. A new problem of credibility facing Mr. Golding is how his party intends to finance costly promises in the manifesto, without causing serious economic dislocation.

Portia Simpson Miller has other kinds of things to prove. She has already disproved the view that she is a populist who would engage in reckless spending to please the poor. In fact, it is the JLP, the party that had cultivated the image of prudent economic management that now seems bent on political populism, surprisingly without much complaint from the business class and the usual economic analysts. What Portia Simpson Miller has to prove is that she can win her own mandate as a leader, a woman, and a person of faith. In fact, it is not her own credibility that is on the line but the fact that her party has been in power for 18 years. She has to convince more voters that those 18 years have built the foundation to realise the vision that her party has to make Jamaica into a first class country in 25 to 30 years.

Portia Simpson Miller has the advantage of being the more popular of the two party leaders and is consistent in her message to make life better for the disadvantaged while maintaining a growing economy, reducing inflation to low levels, and keeping investments coming in. She has already proven her ability to lead. She now has to convince more voters that she has passed her apprenticeship and is ready to for a full term.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. E-mail: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm