Editorial | Lessons for third parties

Leaders of small political organisations may grasp the wrong lesson and therefore apply inappropriate strategies to the latest survey findings that six in 10 Jamaicans are not inclined to vote for third parties in general elections.

The information, on its face, suggests that the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP) will persist with the lock they have had on the island’s politics since the first election under Universal Adult Suffrage 80 years ago, with its anniversary on December 14 – an anniversary which should be appropriately marked.

Based on their histories since that first seriously democratic election, the pattern of so-called third parties has been to arrive in great expectation and strong bursts of energy, then atrophy to a state of suspended animation, if not formal death.

Which is the position of the National Democratic Movement (NDM), the most promising of the challengers to the ‘big two’ in recent times.

Or, like Joseph Patterson, the leader of the latest of these fledgling and seemingly moribund organisations, they will blame the media for failing to help with a pathway to their success. All of this, of course, misses the point and highlights, some critics might argue, intellectual laziness and an absence of the grit and fortitude that are often required to sustain and expand political movements over the long haul.

NEW APPROACHES

Framed differently, if small parties are intent on breaking the stranglehold of the PNP and JLP on political power, they must first have the stamina and determination for an extended period of democratic political insurgency.

Further, given the alienation of large swathes of voters from the formal electoral process, small parties, in addition to all the other matters relating to the quality of governance, will likely move the needle in their favour with conversations about new approaches to political representation.

They should, for instance, seek to place the question of proportional representation on the country’s agenda, including as part of the current debate on constitutional reform.

One of the findings published this week from a recent private sector-funded poll by Don Anderson’s Market Research Services Limited (MRSL) was that 62.6 per cent of adult Jamaicans were clear that they would vote for a party other than the JLP or the PNP at this time. Only 16 per cent was clearly willing to give a third party a shot.

This might be taken as a reaffirmation of what has happened in elections in recent times – of small parties faring exceedingly poorly, including the NDM at its peak in 2002. Then, NDM ran candidates in just under half the constituencies and gained less than half of one per cent of the votes cast in the island’s first-past-the-post electoral system.

In last February’s municipal elections all of the small parties stayed out of the contest, except for Mr Patterson’s United Independent Congress (UIC), which fielded only four candidates in more than 140 municipal divisions. Voters hardly noticed the UIC.

Responding to the Anderson/MRSL findings, Mr Patterson argued that the media have not done enough to help Jamaicans appreciate third parties, and suggested that the pollsters framing of the question may have worked against groups like his own.

“We really haven’t given the Jamaican people enough context in which to respond,” he said. “They weren’t given a name, nor were they saying the UIC in terms of normal news cycles.”

Mr Patterson may indeed have a point about the public awareness of small parties and the infrequency with which they are invited to comment on issues. The greater truth, though, is that third parties have not in recent years, and certainly not since the NDM in its heyday, brought intellectual gravitas to Jamaica’s political discourse.

After its formation in 1995, under the leadership of Bruce Golding, NDM aggressively questioned Jamaica’s political structures and the quality of its governance. It, for instance, highlighted, and rejected, the two big parties’ connection to gangs and their use to corral urban votes.

At one point in the lead-up to the 2002 election, the NDM’s support was over 19 per cent. Perhaps the shock of its performance sapped all confidence from the party, presaging Mr Golding’s return to the JLP and, eventually, its leadership.

But what happened in, and to, the NDM is not the entirety of the lesson from the episode and of the recent poll findings. Indeed, the Anderson survey also showed that 21 per cent of the electorate were not sure whether they would vote for a third party. So, the door, for that group, is not closed.

NO INHERENT RIGHT

When that proportion is added to 21 per cent who would possibly give it a shot, (Not sure I would vote for a third party) it means that 37 per cent of voters are not closed to the idea. That is less than a full point below the turnout for the 2020 general election and seven percentage points over the amount that voted in the last municipal elections.

Moreover, building political movement is often long and painstaking, and there is no inherent right for parties to exist.

The PNP was formed in 1938. In 1944, it won only five of the 36 parliamentary seats, the same as independents. It did not form the government until 1955.

In Britain, the Labour Party was formed in 1900. It was not until 1924 that Ramsay McDonald led it to a majority in the Commons. For much of the second half of the 19th century and the early period of the 20th century, the Liberals dominated the British government. Then they waned. By 1988 it no longer existed, having merged with the Democratic Labour Party, a splinter group from Labour, to form the Lib Dems.

Building or sustaining political organisations is not ordained. It is hard work.