Orville Taylor | After overwhelming majority, time to deliver promises

If I did not study geography in second form, I would’ve looked at the political map of my country and thought that it was Greenland. Some of my dearest friends are totally stunned, resorting to analgesics and antacids. Worse, one diehard Comrade has declared that he won’t swallow the brand called Andrews.

Tomorrow is Labour Day in the United States, but the two Jamaican labour parties, one called by the eponym, went into a rematch. And the polls suggested that the incumbent was going to win by a gap of around 12 per cent. According to the trained statisticians and social researchers in my department on the plantation, the sample size used among the various researchers pointed to a margin of error of three to four per cent. This means that the differential could be as high as 16 per cent.

Most popular market researcher, Don Anderson, in a poll conducted for the RJRGLEANER Communications Group, two weeks before the election reported that of the 62 per cent of registered electors, who indicated an intention to vote, 37 per cent indicated that they would have been voting for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Another 25 per cent indicated support for the People’s National Party (PNP) and another 38 per cent were either not committed or had no intention to vote.

When the largest response category is those who haven’t decided, this doesn’t augur well for a large turnout, and typically small turnouts, I am told, tend to favour the incumbent. Nonetheless, I was logically expecting around 37 seats for the JLP, but the 49 to 14 landslide must hurt even those who were in the middle of the road.

True, there was only a 37 per cent voter turnout, which makes it the lowest percentage of voters in any post-1944 election in Jamaica.

DEAF COMRADES

Whatever might be the allegations of subterfuge, vote buying and other factors to ‘steal’ the election, the truth is that the people spoke and there were deaf Comrades, who kept clutching at straws. What certain tribal elements in the PNP failed to acknowledge was that as when the JLP kept getting beaten like an informer in a lock-up, it was because the nation no longer liked its leader(s) and not necessarily because they liked the ruling party as much. The PNP did not present a president who was liked by even the traditional 35 to 40 per cent of Jamaicans whose blood is orange. Moreover, as the voting in Manchester and Westmoreland showed, the electors were not excited by the heir apparent either.

It was thus very unfortunate when candidates, who understand what social research methods are about, try to ‘shoot the messenger’ because he was presenting facts and not ‘fox’.

‘Hystery’ was made in this election, in that this was the most female candidates ever presented. The JLP has now 14 women ready to sit in the House. Add the four from the PNP and we are at a new watermark.

It is also the first time since the 1960s that the JLP had defended its wicket in a contested general election. History will likely not be as kind to Peter Phillips, who will be the first president of the PNP to never become prime minister or premier.

For those of us who saw the undeclared civil war of the 1970s to 1980s, the level of camaraderie between followers of both parties was admirable. I saw at first hand residents of several Corporate Area garrisons with orange and green ‘holding a medz’. If we can keep that level of tolerance going forward, we will be able to face the next spike of COVID-19, which will come, from the carelessness of our candidates and activists in not practising physical distancing and other protocols.

DELIVER PROMISES

In the Houses of Parliament, Andrew Holness will have to show that with a more than two-thirds majority in the Lower House, he will not be a dictator. After all, with the majority of Jamaicans not having voted for him, it means that there is a large opposition outside of the system, who, if unappeased, will make like miserable for us all.

Within his party, the least of his problems will be how to keep physical distancing among 48 on the right hand of the Speaker. Of course, Phillips has so much space, an astronomer could have a field day. His single task is how to plot the rebuilding of his party and make the gracious timetable for his retirement as he promised.

Holness, on the other hand, has to choose his Cabinet wisely.

Members of parliament can’t all be ministers and many constituencies are underserviced.

Nonetheless, he has up to five years to deliver on the promises. But it is a whole lot of time when one is in opposition but a wink of an eye when in government. He must not squander this moment.

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.