ON THURSDAY Jamaicans will trek to polling stations across the country for their 16th general election since the introduction of adult suffrage in that Caribbean Community partner state.
Whatever the final outcome in the battle for the 60-seat House of Representatives, traditionally dominated by the two pre-independence political parties – Jamaica Labour Party (current incumbent) and the People’s National Party – what will most likely distinguish general election 2011 could be a combination of factors that suggest healthy indicators of change developing in the body politic.
For a CARICOM state where bloody political violence had become the norm for far too long, Jamaicans – whether JLPite or PNPite – have managed to keep their political vexations largely under control, much to the commendation of the generally exhausted security forces during and outside the election campaigns.
Indeed, despite the reported isolated cases of murder and other cases of criminal offence, the transformation in social behaviour has proved to be so encouraging that this past weekend, the highly respected Political Ombudsman,
Bishop Herro Blair, felt obliged to speak, optimistically, about the likelihood of this institution (believed to be unique within CARICOM) becoming redundant by another general election. Time will tell.
For this week’s snap poll, which has come some nine months before the scheduled period, there has also been the first-time public disclosure by private corporations of campaign funding provided both the PNP and JLP, thus breaking new political ground to, hopefully, be implemented elsewhere within our 15-member Caribbean Community.
Here in Barbados and other CARICOM states public disclosure of campaign funding for contesting parties has long been an incessant demand from various sources but yet to happen as is now a done deal in Jamaica by at least five leading corporate entities – and in the absence of legislation to make this a legal requirement. Transparency in funding of campaigns for national elections should be very much part of our multi-party parliamentary democratic process.
Hence, the business enterprises in Jamaica that have set the pattern deserve to be commended.
Altogether, therefore, against the backdrop of the sensational developments during and after the arrest and extradition to the Unites States of the infamous Jamaican drug kingpin Christopher Dudus Coke, Jamaica, the rest of the Caribbean region as well as the wider world have been left to assess some of the very positive developments in that CARICOM state that coincide with general election 2011.
The signals point to a generally peaceful election process on Thursday, even as the latest findings of the leading pollsters in Jamaica continue to signal a very close race between the incumbent JLP under first-time and short-time Prime Minister Andrew Holness, and the second-chance seeker, PNP’s Portia Simpson-Miller.