Editorial | Attacking voter cynicism

Prime Minister Andrew Holness appears to feel that if he delivers on his election promises and keeps his ministers relatively honest, he’ll be able to cauterise the cynicism about politics in Jamaica and reverse the apathy that contributed to the meagre turnout for last week’s election for the Government.

Mr Holness has a point. It is our view, though, that more fundamental and sustained interventions are required to address the worrying trend that was acknowledged by the prime minister. Indeed, as the country’s leader, with, as he put it, “a large and convincing mandate”, Mr Holness has an obligation to embark on that process, which will require a full engagement of the political Opposition and civil society.

In last week’s election, Mr Holness’ Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) won a minimum 48 of the 63 parliamentary seats, with 57 per cent of the popular vote. The JLP’s seat count could go even higher when the recounting of votes in a few contested constituencies is completed.

But, as the prime minister was close to conceding in a speech after taking his oath of office on Monday, the scale of the mandate could be deceptive. “While this election was conducted in a pandemic (COVID-19), which would have had an impact on voter turnout, we are still very concerned about the low voter turnout that has been a trend over the last three elections,” he said.

LOW VOTER TURNOUT

The fact is that only 37.2 per cent of the island’s more than 1.9 million registered voters showed up, and support for Mr Holness’ party was just over 21 per cent of all the people on the voters’ register. Notably, the voter turnout for last week’s election was 11 percentage points lower than the 48.37 per cent in 2016, which, up to then, was the lowest for a general election since Jamaica gained Universal Adult Suffrage in 1944. The previous lowest, prior to 2016, was 53.17 per cent for the election before, in 2011.

For the 15 other general elections under universal suffrage before 2016, the lowest turnout was the 58.7 per cent in the first one, 76 years ago, except for the 29.48 per cent in 1983, when the poll was boycotted by the People’s National Party (PNP).

Mr Holness’ solution for the dwindling voting statistics: “We know that a large number of Jamaicans are not satisfied with the integrity, dignity and efficiency of their State and government. We, therefore, see the strong correlation between the success of our economic and social programme and the trust of the public. We commit to make the Government of the highest integrity, dignity, and efficiency.”

There is indisputable logic in that observation. Mr Holness, however, does not go far enough. There is, for instance, the matter of the so-called garrison communities, the zones of political exclusion, encompassing entire constituencies or parts thereof, which are off limits to one or the other party. These garrisons are less impenetrable now than in the past, but they persist and will require political work, beyond what may be delivered by the normal competence of a government, for there to be real transformation. In this regard, Mr Holness might want to revisit, and seek to update, the 1997 Kerr Report on political tribalism in Jamaica.

EFFORTS TO ADDRESS ISSUES

Much of the cynicism about politics to which Mr Holness alluded is at once an outgrowth of, and contributor to, the crisis of social dysfunction which manifests in, among other things, Jamaica’s high rate of homicides – 45/100,000 on an average – indiscipline on the roads by motorists and road pedestrians, and, too often, poor interpersonal relations. A quarter of a century ago, the then prime minister, P.J. Patterson, attempted to address the latter issue with a values and attitudes campaign which failed, in part, because it was ridiculed by many opinion leaders.

Sporadic efforts to revive the idea have not gained traction. It is an initiative on which Mr Holness should be willing to expend political capital.

The former PNP politician and education minister, Ronald Thwaites, is a strong advocate for the return of civics as part of the core curriculum in Jamaican schools to help develop an engaged citizenry that appreciates its role in, and obligations to, the society. We agree with Mr Thwaites. Mr Holness should instruct whoever he appoints as his education minister to have civics in the curriculum at all levels of Jamaica’s school system.

The prime minister should also cause to be explored, and debated, the idea of mandatory voting in Jamaican elections, as is required in more than 20 other countries. We appreciate that freedom of choice and the right to vote, inherent in liberal democracies, may be taken to also mean the right not to exercise one’s franchise. But there is, perhaps, the converse argument that failure to participate in that electoral process endangers the very democracy that delivers that right, and that there are many lesser things that democratic societies impose on, and make compulsory for, their citizens.

Indeed, this debate would look, among other things, on what value countries like Australia and Belgium, with their mandatory voting laws, derive from their 95 per average voter turnout at elections.