Editorial | Fixed-date elections, please!

If Horace Chang’s remarks to this newspaper are taken at face value, there would not be a by-election any time soon to fill the South Trelawny parliamentary seat, unless Prime Minister Andrew Holness plans to call a national poll in short order. Or, he may bundle the vote to fill the seat, which Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert vacated last month, with the municipal elections, which, unless postponed again, must be held by next February.

Whatever may be Mr Holness’ strategic and tactical calculations with respect to South Trelawny, the issue renews the question of fixed election dates, which Mr Holness used to support but has done nothing during his nearly eight consecutive years in office to put into effect.

If they had kept on their four-yearly schedule, the elections for Jamaica’s 13 parish-delineated municipal authorities, as well as that for the ‘city’ of Portmore, would have been held by November 2020. But they were postponed for up to 15 months because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government said, although a general election was held three months earlier. The elections were again postponed for up to another 15 months, which will end in February 2024. Mr Holness has indicated that, barring something catastrophic, there will be no further postponements.

The island’s two major parties, Mr Holness’ Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP), the parliamentary Opposition, have clearly begun campaigning for the vote ­– hustings that have begun to assume the tone of a general election campaign.

This is the political environment in which Mrs Dalrymple-Philibert left Parliament and the Speakership of the House, after being accused by the island’s Integrity Commission (IC) of abusing a scheme which, every five years, allows public servants a 20 per cent duty rebate on a motor vehicle purchase. The IC has warned the former Speaker for prosecution for allegedly lying in her declarations, over seven years, by failing to report her ownership of a vehicle she acquired under the scheme. The commission implied that Mrs Dalrymple-Philibert illegally transferred the duty benefit to family members.

A report by this newspaper on Sunday quoted Dr Chang, the deputy prime minister and the JLP’s general secretary, as saying that the party had largely settled its candidates for the municipal elections. But, very notably, Dr Chang, who is also the national security minister, said that a by-election to fill Mrs Dalrymple-Philibert’s seat was being considered “at this time”. The reason: a general election is due in less than two years.

FLEXIBILITY

Indeed, the next general election is constitutionally due in September 2025, although there is the flexibility to extend the date by up to three months. But the Constitution also gives the prime minister the power to call a general election at any time during the term of his Government.

In the event that Mr Holness goes to his five-year limit, the next election should be in 22 months, or just shy of two years. Judging from Dr Chang’s remarks, that is how long the constituency of Trelawny South might have to go without parliamentary representation. Which, in the history of Jamaican democracy, may not be unique. It, however, would be unusual in the context of this administration’s most recent approach to parliamentary by-elections.

The March 5, 2018 by-election that brought Finance Minister Nigel Clarke to Parliament was indeed more than two years (by five months) before Jamaicans voted in the national poll, and nearly three years ahead of the poll’s constitutionally due date. But the JLP’s Anne-Marie Vaz’s election in East Portland in April 2019 was 17 months before the September 2020 national poll and, like what obtains now in South Clarendon, 22 months before the next general election was due.

The stunning bit is what transpired in South Eastern Clarendon, now represented in Parliament by the current labour and social security minister, Pearnel Charles Jr. A by-election for that seat was held on March 2, 2020, six months before the general election in September of that year. If the Government had gone its full term, the election would have been due in February 2021.

It is possible that the governing party does not perceive a by-election in Southern Trelawny particularly propitious at this time, even if it regained the seat. Such political calculations would not be unique to Mr Holness and the JLP.

BAD FOR DEMOCRACY

However, this newspaper is among those who believe that such manoeuvrings and sleight-of-hand schemes to outfox opponents are bad for democracy. They breed uncertainty and cynicism, and encourage behaviours that weaken trust in democratic governance.

Which is why we have backed a fixed date for general elections and a clear minimum time period before a national vote when a by-election would be delayed.

Prime Minister Holness was once firmly with us on this issue. A fortnight before the 2016 general election that brought his party to office, he told a campaign rally in Montego Bay: “Within our first 100 days of government, we will start the legislative process to fix the date for general elections in Jamaica. This will bring greater certainty to the political process, and, by the way, the date will be a date after the Budget and not before.”

Several countries with Westminster-style parliamentary democracies have instituted fixed-election dates for precisely the reasons articulated by Mr Holness.

Given that Section 64 (2) of the Constitution, which sets out the life cycle of Parliament, is a deeply entrenched clause, Jamaicans would have to confirm any change in a referendum. But, with 8 of 10 adult Jamaicans in support of fixed-date elections, that ought not to be a steep hurdle to scale.

Rather, it is a low-hanging fruit ready for picking in Jamaica’s constitutional reform programme – if Mr Holness is minded to do so.