Dear Editor,
With all the recent polls showing a decline in positive ratings for the People's National Party (PNP) and its leaders, one must not take this as a foregone conclusion that the PNP is on its way out of power.
When election statistics are carefully analysed, especially voter turnout nationally, it is very clear that the stats are not favouring a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) victory.
It is almost a certainty that the voter turnout in the next general election will be between 45 and 50 per cent. In the democratic world, where elections are free and fair, low voter turnout suits the incumbent. In all the elections that the JLP has won since 1944, voter turnout has averaged high.
The last general election in which there was a voter turnout of 53.17 per cent, most of the JLP's victory in the 21 constituencies all registered above average turnout, with Portland Western and St Elizabeth South Western having the highest voter turnout nationally. The JLP has never been able to win with low voter turnout. Of the 42 constituencies the PNP won in 2011, 31 experienced below average voter turnout.
What is also not in the JLP's favour is the 'P J Patterson model', in which he has configured, since 1995, some 20 constituencies in which the PNP's efforts with outmatch the JLP's. So leaders' popularity and national issues have nothing to do with how those 20 constituencies will vote.
The JLP has not been able to overcome this sort of 'political handicap' to be able to model itself as a populist party that can energise a rather apathetic electorate. Political empirical data and trends are seldom wrong. The JLP cannot win the election with a voter turnout under 58 per cent. It becomes even harder with the 22 seats they have to win from the PNP -- an extremely tall order.
Fernandez Smith
fgeesmith@yahoo.com
With all the recent polls showing a decline in positive ratings for the People's National Party (PNP) and its leaders, one must not take this as a foregone conclusion that the PNP is on its way out of power.
When election statistics are carefully analysed, especially voter turnout nationally, it is very clear that the stats are not favouring a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) victory.
It is almost a certainty that the voter turnout in the next general election will be between 45 and 50 per cent. In the democratic world, where elections are free and fair, low voter turnout suits the incumbent. In all the elections that the JLP has won since 1944, voter turnout has averaged high.
The last general election in which there was a voter turnout of 53.17 per cent, most of the JLP's victory in the 21 constituencies all registered above average turnout, with Portland Western and St Elizabeth South Western having the highest voter turnout nationally. The JLP has never been able to win with low voter turnout. Of the 42 constituencies the PNP won in 2011, 31 experienced below average voter turnout.
What is also not in the JLP's favour is the 'P J Patterson model', in which he has configured, since 1995, some 20 constituencies in which the PNP's efforts with outmatch the JLP's. So leaders' popularity and national issues have nothing to do with how those 20 constituencies will vote.
The JLP has not been able to overcome this sort of 'political handicap' to be able to model itself as a populist party that can energise a rather apathetic electorate. Political empirical data and trends are seldom wrong. The JLP cannot win the election with a voter turnout under 58 per cent. It becomes even harder with the 22 seats they have to win from the PNP -- an extremely tall order.
Fernandez Smith
fgeesmith@yahoo.com