Beyond the local government elections
DESPITE THE multifaceted and varied assessments of the final result of the recently concluded 2024 local government elections, there is every expectation that Mark Golding’s mass-based re-energised People’s National Party’s (PNP) will be advancing to the 18th general election since 1944, whenever they are called, as the dominant political force in Jamaica at this time.
According to the results from the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) won seven local authorities, to the main opposition PNP’s six (inclusive of the Portmore municipality) and a tie in the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC).
The PNP – being saddled with a fractious image up to the time of the calling of the elections, which pundits and civil society likened unto a mini-general (referendum) elections for both parties and their leaders – was able to capture the popular vote in the election, in excess of 300,000 against the seemingly impervious Andrew Holness-led JLP, and winning in the process some 115 local government divisions, up from 98 in the local government elections of 2016, which it lost.
In strict political terms, the PNP can be expected, in light of this commendable performance, to set about in the months ahead to demonstrate to the JLP administration that while it continues to enjoy the authority to govern, it is they – notwithstanding the low voter turnout – who have the popular “people power” now to rule from the periphery.
Recent opinion polls, after all, did confirm that a swing away from the JLP was a distinct possibility heading into any election, and this outcome has given to the PNP a very concrete reason to now give practical, and more vocal, street- and community-level expression to its simmering disapproval of the Government’s perceived mishandling of the country, epitomised, inter alia, by a discredited trickle-down economic model, the stumbling block of a coercive power steeped in the norm of exploitative scandals and corrupt conduct, not to mention the deep sense of insecurity borne by thousands under the oppressive weight of marauding gunmen and criminals.
PREFERENCE OF THE ELECTORATE
Of course, it can be argued, as The Gleaner editorials have on more than one occasion, that for its part, the PNP is yet to present to the broad mass of the electorate a coherent set of policy options forming the distinguishing hallmark between itself and the Government with respect to delivering a sane, incorruptible, accountable and equitable future for the country in the remainder of the 21st century.
But, as every absorbed student of politics knows, in our Westminster-type political system, hardly any of this matters. What is important is that historically, the enduring complex power relationships between the PNP and the JLP require the party without formal power to devise strategies and stratagems of resistance to survive where both parties more often than not are mirror images of each other. What one does is bound to impact on what the other thinks and eventually does.
So now that the electorate in the recent local government elections has given the PNP a popularity bump, the party in turn will likely interpret this as a call to re-legitimise itself as a rightful – and serious – participant in the governmental process. In this context, whatever may be the analysis to the contrary by the governing JLP, the poll results indicate that the electorate would probably prefer the PNP rather than the governing party to now call the shots.
None of this need surprise us. The narrowing of the gap in the election between the authority of the current (local) governors and the collective will of popular “people power” that now rules is obviously mediated by economic factors.
The JLP’s offer in 2016 of better management of affairs, it will be recalled, did prove seductive to many Jamaicans and they in turn yielded largely without intimidation. Now, eight years later, many of those same Jamaicans feel that the issues of governance must inevitably turn on satisfaction or otherwise with the social and economic policies pursued by the government of the day.
Regrettably, however, the social and economic policies of the Government have largely resulted in the continuing marginalisation of multiple of thousands due to continuing unemployment, and the failure of those who govern to deliver as they promised they would, on the basis of wise financial husbandry and better public management characterised by integrity, transparency and honesty. Since 2016, time and collective experience has unmistakenly placed much of this into perspective, so much so, that it is the PNP that now has the kind of moral authority that the governing JLP and its members of parliament (MPs) should really have.
GREAT DANGER TO THE FUTURE VIABILITY
Of course, how the PNP chooses to utilise its new-found power of rulership without governorship in light of its electoral performance is left to be seen. I suspect that it is not fully ready to do battle with a well-oiled JLP election machine should general election be called any time soon. And that it is not brimming with the confidence and fresh ideas of a political party certain of its destiny in the hands of the electorate, especially where only 29.6 per cent of them bothered to cast their vote in the elections, thus leaving a staggering 70 per cent signalling a great deepening erosion of faith in the political process.
This unfolding political catastrophe clearly represents a great danger to the future viability of our entrenched democracy and political system, as we have come to know and experience them since Independence in 1962. In the years since then, the viewers and voters, in increasingly large numbers, have steadfastly and emphatically shun the idea of notions of prosperity being made a creature of political power, which, in their view, have been perverted to the corrupt and naked self-interest of politicians.
On this score, I am convinced in the view that they want their material interests protected and their self-worth acknowledged in any system of representation they must deal with. More than a sizeable few, unlike before, perhaps, no longer seem to need the patronage of politics and politicians to survive.
In light of this, the society, inclusive of those with ambition to lead, must acknowledge that these are extremely challenging times for the politics of expectations and progressive governments. As such, if the PNP, under Mark Golding’s leadership, is not to squander its new-found power from the periphery, it must recognise first and foremost that “people power” – or the power of the natural rulers in a democracy – is more than a slogan. It speaks to a logic of democratic politics that is admittedly more easily declared than practised.
In the present dispensation in which the party finds itself, democracy has as much to with substance as with form. This means that while the recent poll results and trends point to popular disaffection from the JLP, they do not signal summary rejection just yet of the current governors. Neither do they signal an early general election or a definite third-term for Andrew Holness and the JLP.
The months ahead in the politics of Jamaica will be anything but dull. While the PNP attends to finetuning its internal architecture and shaping a government of all the talents (G.O.A.T) in waiting, it now has an excellent opportunity to use its captive audience in most parishes going forward to prepare itself for the future administration of this country. It may not get another opportunity like this again for some serious political education of the electorate towards its vision of a more viable, stable and inclusive social structure and economic hope.
Going forward, however, the party must guard against the danger of a “win already” mentality in the forthcoming general election, which can only serve to blur the vision of many within its ranks and feed the impatience that has always been the bane of power seekers.