Editorial | Crisis in democracy

We should perhaps look at the brighter side. The 38 per cent of Jamaicans who say they will vote in municipal elections when they are called is statistical equivalent to the amount (37.85 per cent) who cast ballots in the September 2020 general election. If this prediction holds, it will be the highest voter turnout in the five local government elections since the start of the 2000s – three-and-a-half percentage points more than that of June 2003.

Additionally, in all municipal elections so far this century, voter turnouts have trailed the preceding parliamentary election by over 20 percentage points, with the 22.45 percentage points in 2016 being the narrowest. The widest differential during the period was 29.9 per cent turnout in December 2007, compared against the national parliamentary elections the previous September, when 61.48 per cent of the electorate voted.

The latest statistics, therefore, suggest a move in the right direction. But this newspaper prefers to hold any celebratory applause. For not only are we disinclined to count our proverbial chickens before they actually hatch, or people actually vote, the data clearly indicate that Jamaica’s democracy remains in crisis. Indeed, four in 10 Jamaicans say they do not intend to vote, of whom 21 per cent were emphatic that nothing could entice them to cast their ballots.

Looked at another way, whichever of the two parties – the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which holds the national government, or the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) – holds sway in these elections, due by next February, and wins more of the municipal divisions, it will do so with the support of a minority of eligible voters.

The two parties are in a statistical dead heat in the current opinion polls – which has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent. The JLP has the backing of 23 per cent of the electorate, and the PNP 22 per cent.

STILL DEEP CAUSE FOR CONCERN

According to the survey conducted by Don Anderson’s Market Research Services Ltd, 60 per cent of registered voters held out the possibility of casting ballots. Only 38 per cent, however, were certain that they would. 22 per cent were not sure. But this category, as Mr Anderson pointed out, moves little. Then there is the baked 40 per cent of non-voters. This group will, in all likelihood, grow substantially larger.

So, despite the flicker of positivity in the numbers, especially when compared to recent elections, deep cause for concern remains.

Indeed, not only will the majority not vote, a significant chunk made it plain that they are staying away because they believe that casting their ballots in elections of any kind matters naught. In fact, more than one in five (27 per cent) of the one-third of registered electors say that they have never voted. While 15 per cent of this group just lack interest, a similar amount does not believe that local government elections are important. The perception among the latter group, it seems, is that a concentration of authority in the central government makes the parish-based municipal authorities largely ineffectual.

Yet, the pollsters observed, there is additional interest in the forthcoming municipal elections because they are more than two years overdue, having been delayed twice. And coming so close to a general election, which is to be held in less than two years, this campaign is assuming national overtones. The effect, mostly, is to energise the parties’ base or hardcore supporters.

WINDOW STILL OPEN

There is perhaps an opportunity, nonetheless, for the island’s political leaders to, as they promised, begin to do substantial things to halt the drift of Jamaica’s democracy.

In the aftermath of the historically low voter turnout in the 2020 parliamentary election, the then opposition leader, Peter Phillips, suggested that the government and the parties, separately and together, had an obligation to encourage citizen engagement with politics and governance, lest the country lose the benefits of the sacrifices of earlier generations who fought for Jamaica’s independence and democracy.

Prime Minister Holness agreed. “We could put the Parliament to work on examining the possibilities of how we could have greater engagement,” he said.

Not much, unfortunately, has happened on this front. And Jamaicans continue to be distrustful of the island’s political institutions and their leaders, and cynical of the political process.

Seven in 10 Jamaicans believe they live in a corrupt country, with nearly half having little faith in the legislature and key institutions of the State.

In a 2021 survey by Vanderbilt University’s LAPOP research laboratory, 45 per cent declared dissatisfaction with the island’s democracy, and 46 per cent said they would tolerate a military coup if the aim was to fight corruption. A little more than half would accept an executive coup by a strongman leader who bent the rules, if he got things done.

The window is perhaps still open for Mr Holness to be transformational. In the latest Anderson poll, half of the intended voters (51 per cent) said how they cast their ballots will be driven by the issues in the campaign. The prime minister might take his cue from that.