Jamaican elections - special between-the-years treat

[minionofmidas]

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.

[minionofmidas]

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

Going to look for a report on changes now.

[minionofmidas]

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

Report

[minionofmidas]

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.

[minionofmidas]

Some opinion poll says PNP 51, JLP 49.

[minionofmidas]

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

[minionofmidas]

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.)
 

[minionofmidas]

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.

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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.

[minionofmidas]

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

They know their geography of North Central London...

[minionofmidas]

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.

[minionofmidas]

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.

[minionofmidas]

Election Day!

Time for human interest stories. This one with significance.

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

[minionofmidas]

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.)

[minionofmidas]

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.

[minionofmidas]

You can piece one together from here.

[minionofmidas]

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

[minionofmidas]

Besides, with the black borders, that makes it look like the Jamaican flag!

Very nice. Didn't expect such a big win (seatwise; it seems the popular vote wasn't all that landslidey?)

[minionofmidas]

PNP performance by parish and county.

Cornwall 52.7 (+2.4) 11 out of 16 (+3 - seat added)

Hanover 53.3 (+3.1) 2 out of 2 (0)
Westmoreland 62.9 (+4.7 assuming that's a misprint in my 2007 post) 3 out of 3 (0)
Saint James 50.4 (+4.1) 3 out of 5 (+2 - seat added)
Trelawny 51.0 (+1.5) 1 out of 2 (0)
Saint Elizabeth 53.7 (+5.2) 2 out of 4 (+1)

Middlesex 51.8 (+3.4) 18 out of 28 (+6 - 2 seats added)

Saint Ann 54.0 (+4.6) 3 out of 4 (+2)
Saint Mary 53.5 (+2.2) 3 out of 3 (+1)
Manchester 53.4 (+2.4) 3 out of 4 (0)
Clarendon 50.1 (+4.6) 3 out of 6 (+2)
Saint Catherine 50.5 (+3.1) 6 out of 11 (+1 - 2 seats added which split 1-1 along predictable lines, and nothing changed hands actually)

Surrey 54.9 (+3.3) 12 out of 19 (+3)

Kingston 52.2 (+4.4) 2 out of 3 (0)
Saint Andrew 57.4 (+4.0) 8 out of 12 (+3)
Saint Thomas 50.2 (+2.2) 1 out of 2 (0)
Portland 50.3 (-0.4) 1 out of 2 (0)

Jamaica 52.9 (+3.3) 41 out of 63 (+12 - 3 added. All of this is compared to the tallies I did four years ago; apparently one close seat actually switched to the JLP in late counting back then so it's actually +13, and some percentages may also be slightly off.)

The Comrades carried every parish! (you gotta love a country where the supporters of the two parties are nicknamed Comrades and Labourites). Longtime PNP incumbent stood down in Portland Eastern; I did read a piece where it was claimed the new candidate was "weak".)

[minionofmidas]

2002 52.1% of the vote got them 34 out of 60. When they took 50 out of 60 in 97, it was on a 16 point lead. So yeah, they got lucky in a lot of swingy seats; pretty much swept all but a couple of them.

Also, first time ever that a Jamaican government was voted out after a single term.

Some JLP bigwigs lost their seats: Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Robert Montague in St Mary W, Mining and Energy Minister Clive Mullings in Montego Bay SW St James WC.

[minionofmidas]

And in narrowly regaining East Rural (which stretches from the suburbs to Blue Mountain Peak), Damion Crawford becomes the first ever rasta MP. No, not the first MP to wear his hair in braids, that's apparently been done before - the first MP to identify his religious affiliation as Rastafarian.

[minionofmidas]

I'm not normally one to gloat at a foreign election result, but it is nice to see the homophobic party go down hard.

They both are, really. Portia's statement in the debate was a bit of a bombshell. Traditional rastas certainly would have been not amused. Heh. Some people are wary of Portia because she has borne no children.

[minionofmidas]

homely is right. The yellow looks better.

[minionofmidas]

How can there be a Rastafarian MP? Wouldn't that be the same as a Jehovah's Witness MP?

Eh. Ask him.