Editorial | Rebuilding trust in democracy

In the immediate wake of Jamaica’s last general election nearly two years ago, there was much handwringing over the state, and likely fate, of Jamaica’s democracy.

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) retained the Government by a landslide, winning 49, or 78 per cent, of Parliament’s 63 seats. However, only 37.2 per cent of the island’s 1.9 million registered voters cast ballots. While the JLP received 56.37 per cent of the votes cast, that translated to support from only 21 per cent of all potential voters. It was the lowest voter turnout since Jamaica achieved adult suffrage. The fact that “over 60 per cent of the persons on the electoral roll did not participate in the electoral process” worried the then president of the People’s National Party (PNP), which received a shellacking.

“It is of concern that so many of our citizens now consider these rights (to elect a government of their choice) are of no value to them,” Dr Peter Phillips said at the first sitting of Parliament after the election. Many people concurred, this newspaper included.

But the urgency in the call for the political re-engaging of Jamaicans has apparently dissipated, perhaps because those in leadership are uncertain of what is required, or are afraid to take the hard decisions.

Yet, the crisis persists. Should Jamaica’s leaders doubt this, they need only peruse the recently launched Jamaica section of Vanderbilt University’s LAPOP research laboratory’s biennial review of attitudes towards democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

While this statistic, by itself, does not explain the alienation of many Jamaicans from the country’s politics, the LAPOP report highlights a disturbing fact: a significant majority of Jamaicans, more than six in 10 citizens, do not trust the island’s elections. They believe outcomes can be manipulated.

Another worrying finding is people’s likely appetite for military coups, and their seeming willingness to embrace strongman leaders who they feel can get things done and bring benefits. Although 57 per cent of Jamaicans who say they support democracy are an improvement on LAPOP’s previous report for 2018-19, the current figure is still a sharp drop from the nearly 80 per cent of two decades ago. However, some of the people who voice support for democracy as an abstract concept are dissatisfied with how democracy works for them. Forty-five per cent of Jamaicans fall into this category.

Moreover, close to half (46 per cent) of Jamaicans said they would tolerate a military coup to fight corruption, and more than four in 10 (44 per cent) would not mind a military takeover to deal with a public health crisis. Even though it would not enjoy the same backing of a military intervention, one-third of Jamaicans would embrace an executive coup, and more than half (55 per cent) would not mind a strong leader who bent the rules, if that leader is perceived to be getting things done and delivering benefits. In that position, Jamaica ranks only behind Guyana (56 per cent) and El Salvador (56 per cent) among the 20 countries surveyed.

Significantly, only 35 per cent, fewer than four in 10, said they trusted elections. Indeed, fewer than a fifth (18 per cent) believe that votes in elections are always counted correctly, as against 65 per cent, who feel that ballots are only tallied properly sometimes. A not-insignificant 15 per cent feel that ballots were always subject to corrupt counting. A full third are convinced that people’s voting choice is never secret, while another 50 per cent are sceptical about its secrecy.

Half of us believe that people with money sometimes buy elections. Another third say they always do. A mere 13 per cent believe that Jamaica’s elections are never for sale.

Additionally, more than eight in 10 Jamaicans believe that foreign countries either always (22 per cent) influence the island’s election outcomes, or sometimes intervene (60 per cent), when it is in their interest.

The perception that Jamaica’s politicians are in someone’s pockets or are open to bribes and kickbacks is reflected in the finding that 55 per cent of the country believes that more than half, and probably all, the people who hold, or are seeking, public office are corrupt.

A neat summation of these attitudes is of an absence, or low levels of trust by Jamaicans for the country’s institutions and the people who run them. Which is not new.

TRANSACTIONAL GROWTH

These views are not contrived for researchers. They have their genesis in how the political elite and the public bureaucracy are deemed to have managed institutions of state – mostly with too little transparency, and for the extraction of private gain at the public’s expense. The cumulative effect is an erosion of trust and a diminution of faith in democracy.

One result is that politics has grown transactional. Dr Phillips lamented the willingness of people to sell their votes, and, as the LAPOP survey found, tolerance for the rule-bending, quasi-authoritarian leader if there is return for the individual voter – with one proviso, that he doesn’t impinge too much on free speech.

This probably suits philosophical untethered, laissez-faire politicians who are not deeply invested in democracy. The good thing for Jamaica is that our politicians profess that they are.

While we are sympathetic to Dr Phillips’ call for a national response to people’s alienation that includes public education campaigns about civic responsibilities, the easiest route to a turnaround is political leadership committed to transparency and intolerant of corruption – whether in political parties or in government.

This process can be kick-started with several initiatives that have long been on the agenda – like removing the gag clause from the Integrity Commission Act; opening to public scrutiny big financial donors to political parties; and being uncompromising in the State’s adherence to constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. In addition the political parties also have to move on that long-stalled project of dismantling political garrisons.