Seaga urges PM to deliver on election promise

President of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) Metry Seaga says Prime Minister Andrew Holness must honour his word of bringing to Parliament legislation for fixed election dates, after 73 per cent of Jamaicans in a national survey insisted on the policy.

“They (fixed dates) create a certainty in the business community and people don’t have to guess and spell around when an election is going to be and the campaigning that has to start and stop. I am for fixed election dates,” Seaga told The Gleaner on Monday.

“There is no reason for us not to have fixed elections. The prime minister did promise it and he needs to hold to that promise,” Seaga asserted.

In the survey conducted between November 24 and December 7 by pollster Don Anderson and team, only 13 per cent of Jamaicans said that the leader of the country should be left to decide when a local government or general election is announced.

Fourteen per cent were uncertain.

The 1,015 registered voters were asked: Do you believe that there should be a fixed date for local government and general elections so that all voters know well in advance when the elections are going to be instead of it be left up to the prime minister?

“That is how we presented it so people understood what we were asking,” said Anderson, whose Market Research Services Limited carried out the poll on behalf of senior executives of a publicly listed company who have asked to remain anonymous.

“So, almost three out of every four persons we interviewed said that there should be a fixed date for the elections,” he added.

The survey has a sampling error of plus or minus three per cent at the 95 per cent confidence level.

By gender, 71 per cent of men polled wanted fixed dates and 74 per cent of women who participated agreed.

Among young voters aged 18 to 24 years old, 75 per cent of them said Jamaicans must know the date of elections via legislation.

Similarly, among the 25 to 34 age group, 73 per cent said yes; within the 35 to 44 range, 74 per cent said yes; 72 per cent of those aged between 45 and 54 also supported this; and 72 per cent were of the same mind.

For the 55 to 64 cohort, 70 per cent said yes to fixed election dates, and for seniors 65 and over, who Anderson said are more inclined to vote, 77 per cent of them said yes.

“So, overwhelmingly across the demographic groupings, there is a desire for a fixed date for both local government and general elections,” Anderson said.

An overwhelming majority of Jamaicans have consitently pressed for fixed dates for both general and local government elections and for the prime minister to be relieved of the power to make such a decision.

The results of an Anderson poll commissioned by the RJRGLEANER Communications Group released in October showed that 81 per cent of the 1,010 Jamaicans polled were in favour of such a move.

“I think these results present an opportunity for the media to keep pressing, and when asked, for the private sector groups to stick to their guns and say that we want fixed local government and general election [dates],” said Seaga.

In the run-up to the 2016 general election, Holness pledged that an administration led by him would introduce a system of fixed election dates.

In September 2017, he told journalists that drafting instructions had been given for legislation to be crafted that would ultimately give effect to a system of fixed election dates. The current status of the draft is unclear.

Government lawmakers in February voted unanimously to further delay the municipal polls, which were originally due in November 2020.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com