Jamaican elections - special between-the-years treat

[Vasall des Midas]

December 29th. Bruce Golding has resigned a little while ago, and his successor Andrew Holness has decided to get his own mandate nine months early.

2007 thread

There has been a redistribution of seats - overdue, by the way - and the size of parliament has been increased by three. This is partly because the last two elections were so tight that people started looking up what would have happened in the case of a tie, and found that there was no constitutionally accepted procedure.
I'll go see if I can find details on the new constituencies now.

[Vasall des Midas]

http://www.eoj.com.jm/constituencies.htm

Going to look for a report on changes now.

[Vasall des Midas]

St James (Mo Bay) +1 seat
St Catherines (Spanish Town, western Kingston suburbs) +2 seats

Report

[Vasall des Midas]

Fun fact: the new seats (no precincts were moved between any of the other constituencies) are South Central and East Central. Hovewer, the new constituency names are Eastern and North Central. The old East Central was renamed North Central, the old South Central (yes!) was renamed Eastern.

South Central was built from ~40% SW, ~30% C, ~20% (bit less actually, so add to the others) the old South Central, ~10% West Central.

East Central was built from 45%+ old South Central, 45% Southern, 8% South Eastern.

In other words, the old "South Central" extended far further south than its "Eastern" successor seat does.

[Vasall des Midas]

Some opinion poll says PNP 51, JLP 49.

[Vasall des Midas]

Heh. Things are changing in the right direction, slowly but surely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDb73VCjxAk (cool jacket, Mrs. Leader of the Opposition!)

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20111225/cleisure/cleisure2.html

[homelycooking]

What cleavage structures are at work here besides economic ideology (center-left vs right)? I can't glean anything from the geography besides the fact that PNP is very strong in Westmoreland, winning a seat there from JLP against the tide.

[Vasall des Midas]

That's PJ Patterson's personal popularity, I think. The big cleavage is foreign policy / attitude towards the US. Which is inevitably tied in both with economical issues (duh effing duh, as this is true to an extent everywhere in the double continent) and identity issues - e.g. anyone touched by rastafari ideology (as opposed to, you know, rastafari fashion and weed smoking - that alone says nothing) is highly likely to vote PNP and dead certain to not vote JLP. They might not vote at all, as indeed they did more or less as a bloc in the 50s and 60s. Basically, "African" = PNP, "American" = JLP.
Another obvious, and related, pattern is the tourist areas - not a more laidback partially touristy town like Porti, and certainly not a hippie enclave like Negril, but the American bedfortresses [is there an American idiom for it? I just translated one from the German.] like Ocho Rios and Mo Bay voting for the JLP. So do the affluent Uptown parts of Kingston, obviously.
And then there are a lot of rural places, and of course the slummy garrisons (as the Jamaicans call them) of Kingston and Spanish Towns, that seem to just vote the way they do because they got that way... (More garrisons for the PNP, understandably, but the JLP's aren't really any different in any way. Though I wonder if the JLP's strength in Kingston West has taken serious damage over the Tutus extradition business. My money is on "no", but, you know, it's possible. Couldn't possibly judge from here.)
 

[Vasall des Midas]

Not complete without mentioning bauxite, of course, which exists across much of the southwestern two-thirds of the island and has been stripmined at numerous locations since the 1950s



Mandeville and May Pen owe much of their urban growth to the industry.

there are also problems and disadvantages. For one thing the bauxite and alumina companies, which are all foreign owned, control one-tenth of the total land surface of Jamaica, an area equal to that of Barbados, Grenada and St Vincent put together [Jamaica does have a not-too-sh!tty royalties deal, though, my note. No comparison to Botswana's actually fair deal, of course]. Can a nation claim to be truly independent in these circumstances? For another, bauxite and alumina do not provide employment for large numbers of people. Thus, at a time when the population of Jamaica is rising by more than 40,000 a year and 200,000 people are looking for work, the number employed in producing bauxite and alumina is less than 10,000.

Even the high wages paid by the bauxite Jamaica companies it can create a problem for society as a whole, as they cannot be matched by other employers. This causes dissatisfaction among workers in other sectors of the economy. A further problem of a very different kind is that of finding a use for the rock waste which the alumina factories dump to form large ugly lakes of red mud.

Jamaica was for much of the period the second or third largest producer in the world, after Australia and/or Guinea. The industry has been declining of recent, several mines lie fallow right now, and the country has slipped to sixth place in production. Reserves are still considered the world's fourth largest.

[Vasall des Midas]

http://www.eoj.com.jm/show_constituency.php?pid=5&cid=92

They know their geography of North Central London...

[lilTommy]

That's PJ Patterson's personal popularity, I think. The big cleavage is foreign policy / attitude towards the US. Which is inevitably tied in both with economical issues (duh effing duh, as this is true to an extent everywhere in the double continent) and identity issues - e.g. anyone touched by rastafari ideology (as opposed to, you know, rastafari fashion and weed smoking - that alone says nothing) is highly likely to vote PNP and dead certain to not vote JLP. They might not vote at all, as indeed they did more or less as a bloc in the 50s and 60s. Basically, "African" = PNP, "American" = JLP.
Another obvious, and related, pattern is the tourist areas - not a more laidback partially touristy town like Porti, and certainly not a hippie enclave like Negril, but the American bedfortresses [is there an American idiom for it? I just translated one from the German.] like Ocho Rios and Mo Bay voting for the JLP. So do the affluent Uptown parts of Kingston, obviously.
And then there are a lot of rural places, and of course the slummy garrisons (as the Jamaicans call them) of Kingston and Spanish Towns, that seem to just vote the way they do because they got that way... (More garrisons for the PNP, understandably, but the JLP's aren't really any different in any way. Though I wonder if the JLP's strength in Kingston West has taken serious damage over the Tutus extradition business. My money is on "no", but, you know, it's possible. Couldn't possibly judge from here.)
 

Wiki just simplified it for us.... PNP is Centre Left social democratic (member of Socialist International) and JLP is a Centre right conservative one with ties to labour (odd, but think of the right faction in the Australian LP)
From 55-62 the PNP was in government and "During this period of government it promoted actively reformist social democratic policies, including opening secondary education to many poorer Jamaicans through state funding of scholarships."  Patterson was PNP, and under him they moderated dramatically and pretty much abandoned socialist ideas (shame really). Not sure where Simpson-Miller stands on this, moderate or leftist.

Midas might be right that in practice they might be two big-tent parties like in the US where the differences are more in certain areas like Foreign Policy rather then say economic today.

Anyone know of Stronghold ridings for both? or swing ridings?

[Vasall des Midas]

Wiki just simplified it for us.... PNP is Centre Left social democratic (member of Socialist International) and JLP is a Centre right conservative one with ties to labour (odd, but think of the right faction in the Australian LP)
From 55-62 the PNP was in government and "During this period of government it promoted actively reformist social democratic policies, including opening secondary education to many poorer Jamaicans through state funding of scholarships."  Patterson was PNP, and under him they moderated dramatically and pretty much abandoned socialist ideas (shame really). Not sure where Simpson-Miller stands on this, moderate or leftist.

The decisive years were before that.
Michael Manley governed pretty leftist in the 70s... leading to fears of a "New Cuba", pullout of US monies, etc pp... also ample violence surrounding elections, from both sides. There's a reason even pop reggae of the era is so politically charged, you know. Manley had very openly pandered to the traditionally abstentionist rastas in the 72 campaign, visiting Haile Selassie for one thing.
Then in 1980 they were swept from office. And the next elections after that, they actually boycotted. Meaning that the JLP had 60 out of 60 seats for the next term. The country was intermittently on the brink of civil war and/or non-constitutional government for much of this era.
It's in the late 80s that the PNP dropped a lot of the old rhetoric... and was amply rewarded with the 89 landslide. Michael Manley became prime minister again, only to resign a few years later because he was dieing from cancer.
It is, of course, somewhat ironic but also very telling that Patterson and Portia are the only Black prime ministers Jamaica has ever had. (Manley pere and fils, Bustamante, Sangster, Shearer, Golding and Holness all being Mulattoes, very lightskinned in the cases of Bustamante, Manley pere and Golding. And Edward Seaga is actually fully White... if we count Arabs as White, anyhow.)

The JLP Labour ties are of course because both parties grew up out of the liberation struggle, which initially was a struggle for equal rights for the 99% within the island. Union organization and agitation against Jim Crow laws and for universal suffrage - and the old colonial franchise was restricted to a tiny electorate - went hand in hand in the 30s, and the breach between Manley and Bustamante was about strategy (and ego clash) initially, not ideology. Of course one thing led to another as traditional elites soon recognized Bustamante as the lesser evil. The suffrage battle was won during WWII.

[Vasall des Midas]

Gleaner had a seat-by-seat prediction that I was going to copy-and-paste in answer to the last part of Tommy's port, now I can't find it anymore. Baseline figures were 23 safe JLP, 20 safe PNP, 20 tossups broken 11-9 in JLP's favor, though.

[Vasall des Midas]

Election Day!

Time for human interest stories. This one with significance.

Glenroy Joseph, a wheelchair bound man in South West, St Andrew is fuming over what he considers the injustice of the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) to locate polling stations in area which are not accessible.

Joseph, 47, refused to be lifted to the second floor of the Whitfield Town All Age School saying it is dangerous.

"Di people dem only a deal wid people pon foot, dem naah deal wid disabled," Joseph said.

Despite persistent pleas by outdoor agents of the People's National Party (PNP) that he takes a ride in the arms of strongmen, he was unrelenting.

"Bubbus, me nah go up deh, me really nah guh up deh. Is supen weh happen to me last time me a avoid," he said.

He told The Gleaner that in 2007 while being lifted up a flight of stairs by men in the constituency, they all fell.

He said he spent three months in hospital as a result of the fall.

Well, that's one vote the opposition party has lost.

[Vasall des Midas]

Love this: "Despite early morning showers, several polling stations in East Portland opened on time". (It should be pointed out that polls open at 7am, and some article from another constituency said that by 7:15 all 80 stations were open though most 10-15 minutes late. Similarly here, most stations were presumably open by 7:30. All the urban ones anyhow, this riding goes from Port Antonio to the eastern tip of the island, but Porti is like 40% of it populationwise.)

[Vasall des Midas]

Anyone know of Stronghold ridings for both? or swing ridings?

Will this do? 2007 results. http://www.eoj.com.jm/cms/uploads/ElectionResults/Parliamentary/20070903%20General%20Election%20Summary.pdf

Most constituencies are unchanged.

[Sibboleth]

Is there a decent blank map around or should I attempt to draw one?

[Vasall des Midas]

You can piece one together from here.

[Vasall des Midas]

Not elections-related, but wonderful census headcounts maps. http://statinja.gov.jm/Maps/Communities%20Maps.pdf

[Sibboleth]

You can piece one together from here.

Ah, alright. It'll probably be terrible, but I shall try anyway...

[Sibboleth]

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Thanks for the map!

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

http://apps.ecj.com.jm/liveresults30m/index.htm live results starting in a bit over an hour.

[Kuu ülevaade olulisematest]

Very nice. If you're making maps, a decent blank map of Uttar Pradesh would be fantastic.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

http://www.televisionjamaica.com/LiveTV.aspx live video