Numbers game

A week after the long-delayed local government elections were held, just like supporters of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and People's National Party (PNP), political commentators appear split down the middle on which party won, even as the official count of ballots ended on Saturday.

Hotly contested debates have continued since Monday night, when thousands of PNP supporters celebrated a win and a subdued JLP maintained that it also won the elections.

The final results released by the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) showed the JLP winning 113 of the 228 divisions and PNP 115.

However, the JLP won seven parishes to the PNP's five, with a tie in Kingston and St Andrew, where the opposition party has the popular vote.

The PNP also won the Portmore mayorship, giving both parties an equal number of mayors after the dust settled.

Looking at the results through different lenses, both parties continue to claim victory.

University lecturer Dr Maziki Thame said the response to the results is baffling.

“Outside of the debate about who won, what we need to be paying attention to is the integrity of the process. The question of why it has taken four days to determine who has won more divisions with a 30 per cent voter turnout, there has to be questions. What does that signal for the general election, which is not too far away from us?” she said in an interview with The Sunday Gleaner.

Thame said that with the PNP set to get the mayorship of Kingston and St Andrew, this was significant and cannot be recorded as anything less than a win for the party.

“I believe the JLP is doing some posturing, maybe about how they want their base to understand what happened on the day and what the results say; how they want the nation to think about where the PNP stands. You can't help but mirror, though, what happened in the United States after the last [presidential] election,” she said.

Where there is a vacuum, she noted, the way opens for different interpretations and the court could become the final arbiter in disputed divisions.

“The posture of the JLP is one which suggests that they do not want to demoralise their base by not admitting that they have lost,” Thame said, adding that the collapsing of responsibilities of the role of political ombudsman into the ECJ was a bad idea, the folly of which has since been seen.

DISINGENUOUS

But Jersey City professor Dr Jermaine McCalpin said the PNP is disingenuous in stating that it won the elections.

“In our first-past-the-post system, control of municipal corporations is determined by the overall number of divisions won under each municipal corporation. So if the numbers end at 7-6 – not counting Portmore, for it's not a parish council – it's a straight-through win for the JLP.

“But we cannot make the argument that because the PNP would have won more electoral divisions, and have the popular vote, they have won. They can count it as a moral victory, but it is not an election victory,” McCalpin told The Sunday Gleaner.

He said that counting the city municipality gives fodder to the PNP that it has won.

McCalpin said he was not convinced that how things unfolded was a win for democracy.

“We have a first-past-the-post system at the parochial and constituency levels, and I notice a trend in Jamaica, I think borrowing from the USA over the last three election cycles, the idea of focusing on the popular votes. Prior to 2007, the popular vote was inconsequential and we don't have the same system. We don't have a two-tier level of certifying who wins the presidency of the USA; we don't have an electoral college, so the popular vote is neither here nor there,” he argued.

McCalpin noted that it should not have taken four days for the ECJ to certify an election with a 30 per cent voter turnout and questioned the preparedness of the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ).

STANDING BY RESULTS

Since January, ECJ Chairman Earl Jarrett has ignored requests from The Sunday Gleaner for comments on electoral matters, but Director of Elections Glasspole Brown said the role of the EOJ is to run elections and provide results and not to declare winners.

“We report results as soon as we count it, per electoral division,” he told The Sunday Gleaner. “Ours is the sole function to provide the results based on the outcome of the counting. We are not in the business of calling an election or declaring a winner.”

He believes that much of the criticisms being levelled against the organisation is because people are not familiar with what results are provided and when.

“Because so much tension had built up around the elections, we wanted to make sure that we are able to stand by what came out of the office. So there were some administrative issues, but with respect to polling stations, 98 per cent of them were opened on time, and by 7:30 a.m., all were operational,” Brown said of polling last Monday.

He said the EOJ will conduct its own election post-mortem.

“We are doing a comprehensive review of what took place on election day, and it also includes what happened during the election for security personnel and election day workers. The various issues will be examined as part of that review,” said Brown.

Ballots did not arrive for one polling division on the day for special voting for emergency personnel.

UNNECESSARY DEBATE

Pollster Don Anderson, whose Market Research Services Limited team was spot-on with its predictions in the recent RJRGLEANER Communications Group-commissioned poll, does not understand the debate over the results.

“The worst-case scenario is 7-6 in favour of the JLP with one tied,” he said.

“I don't think you can obfuscate it or try to say one is separate. It's 14 municipalities; it's not rocket science. Portmore and St Catherine are two separate municipalities. In the most simplistic way, it's 7-6, with one tie and the winner is chosen by way of the popular vote. So it's 7-7,” Anderson stressed.

“There are some administrative functions which definitely need to be addressed, but I do not think the EOJ performed that badly, to be fair to the commission. What made it seem bad is that the count went into four days before completion, and where there is delay, it creates space for misinformation and disinformation,” he explained.

“I think the safeguards are there. You have representatives of either party and lawyers everywhere. So I don't think that lends itself to chicanery, but all semblance of that must be removed,” Anderson added.

“But I don't think they did a bad job, despite all the challenges, some of which are just unavoidable.”

ODD NUMBERS

McCalpin wants to see new divisions created or a redrawing of lines to have an odd number of electoral contests going forward.

“There is an urgent need to reform the whole system. The CRC (Constitutional Reform Committee) has not been given the broad-based legitimacy it should and everything now is going to become more politicised because the PNP has overperformed and now has a bigger say. There should absolutely be no even number of divisions in any municipal corporation so we wouldn't have this tie situation,” he suggested.

Anderson agrees.

“Absolutely. When you think in terms of a board, you always have an odd number so that you cannot have a tie. Logical. Simple. Common sense. I cannot understand why you have 40 divisions in Kingston and St Andrew. Why would you have even numbers for any council at all? I would support the odd-number number totally,” Anderson said.

He also agreed with McCalpin that the CRC should examine low-hanging fruits that will impact the way the country is governed, rather than pursuing a top-down approach with a focus on removing the monarchy.

“I agree that this is something that must be considered going forward,” PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell said when asked about the odd numbering of divisions.

But Thame disagreed.

“I don't think we should do that because the mapping exercise will be determined by who is in power and I am sure they will use the authority to draw lines that will benefit them. I believe the popular vote is a meaningful one. If you think about the process of Constitution reform, what the public has been saying is they want to elect their head of state. They are saying they want direct elections,” Thame posited.

She believes the public likes the idea of the popular vote as “a kind of direct electoral model”.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com