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?
