Editorial | Voter re-engagement should be a priority

Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) have cause to celebrate after their landslide victory in last Thursday’s general election. The JLP won 49, or 78 per cent of the 63 parliamentary seats, with 57 per cent of the popular vote. The People’s National Party (PNP) retained less than half of the 29 seats it held in the previous Parliament.

In terms of seat count, this was the most decisive victory for a party in a general election in the four decades since the JLP, under Edward Seaga in 1980, won 51 of the then 60 House seats. In that election, the JLP, which had gained only 13 seats four years earlier, received 58.3 per cent of the popular vote and, in the process, stripped the PNP of 38 constituencies. Many of the PNP’s senior figures were not only driven out of Parliament, but into permanent retirement. Last week’s defeat will likely have the same effect on the party. The PNP, as it was forced to do post-1980, will have to rebuild.

AVOID TRIUMPHALISM

These, of course, are the vagaries of competitive politics in liberal democracies. The fortunes of parties often ebb and flow. Indeed, in less than a decade after the humiliation of 1980, the PNP was not only back in office, but held the government for 18 years. This, however, is not the only reason why we urge Prime Minister Holness and his party, in the midst of jubilation, to avoid triumphalism.

As he takes the oath of office today, and goes about the formulation of his administration, the PM should reflect deeply on the state of Jamaica’s democracy, and participation therein. It is not this newspaper’s fear that the administration will use its super majority in Parliament, and the relative weakness of the Opposition, to attempt end runs around the constraints of democracy. First, it is not our sense, even if they blunder at times, that the commitment to democracy is anything other than embedded in the DNA of the administration and the party from which it springs.

We also have confidence in the strength of Jamaica’s institutions.

We, nonetheless, have concerns about other potential dangers to the long-term health of the island’s democracy. If people do not actively participate in it, it is not unfathomable that it could atrophy and die. We could have the semblance of a democracy, which, in reality, is a prop for an autocrat or authoritarian.

In the landslide of 1980, there were 990,417 people on the electoral register, of whom 860,746, or approximately 87 per cent, voted. A little over half a million – 502,115 – people cast ballots for the JLP. Three hundred and fifty thousand voted for the PNP.

FEWER PEOPLE VOTED

Since then, even as the voter register has swelled, fewer people have voted. For last week’s poll, for example, there were 1,913,410 eligible voters. Just over 712,000, or 37.23 per cent of them, exercised their franchise. This was more than 11 percentage lower than 48.37 per cent of the general election of 2016, which was narrowly won by the JLP. And voter turnout four years ago represented a 4.8 percentage point decline on 2011’s.

To place these numbers in historical perspective, 40 years ago, when the register of electors was little over half – 51.7 per cent – the size of today’s, the JLP received 502,115 votes. That was nearly 96,000, or 19 per cent more than the 406,408 votes it received last week. Similarly, the 304,750 people who voted for the PNP last week was approximately 45,000, or 13 per cent fewer than in 1980.

It is, of course, incontestable that the circumstance of 1980, with the debate over the ideological direction of the country, gave special significance to that election. That the domestically worsening COVID-19 epidemic suppressed voter turnout last week also has substantial merit. But the trend of declining voter participation, especially among young people, has been continuous since 1980. Moreover, even in the election of 2016, the JLP received over 65,000, or 13 per cent fewer votes than in 1980.

In recent decades, some citizens have found avenues, other than political participation, to give democratic expression to their issues of concern. Many people, though, have abandoned the process altogether. It cannot be good for a liberal democracy if the majority watches from the sidelines. In time, this disengagement will rob democracy and its institutions of their legitimacy, thereby opening, and offering, the system to bad actors with mal-intent.

It is in that context that we ask Mr Holness, in his role as prime minister, and the leader of a political party, to place re-engagement with the democratic process high on his to-do list. This is not a job only for Mr Holness, but as prime minister, he is the key custodian of Jamaica’s constitutional democracy. The greater burden, therefore, rests with him.