The electoral contest that will perhaps be most interesting will take place in St Michael South where Prime Minister Freundel Stuart will be challenged by former Minister of Tourism Noel Lynch.
Naturally, a reliable prediction cannot be made without a poll of public opinion in that constituency which has not be done. Notwithstanding, some progress can be made towards assessing the likely outcome by reference to what historical data is available.
In this instance, the analysis is informed by electoral swing statistics in previous elections that both Stuart and Lynch have contested, measured against the swing achieved by both candidates’ party in the same election. This comparison conveys a sense of how the respective candidates performed in the past that would be a clue to their 2013 performance.
It is also important that attention to be paid to one additional comparative statistic, which relates to the performance of Sir Harold St John in 1986, since this is the only recorded instance of a sitting Prime Minister being defeated. This distinction is important since several of “us” have previously (and loosely) spoken of Lynch beating “two Prime Ministers” and historically identified Sir Harold as the only Prime Minister that was beaten twice.
In reality, we have had seven Prime Ministers and only one has been beaten, and on that occasion his party lost the election as well. Certainly, Lynch did defeat both Sir Lloyd and Stuart in the past, but neither of them was Prime Minister at the time.
In the case of Sir Harold, he was indeed beaten by both Anderson “Peanuts” Morrison and Robert “Bobby” Morris, but only the latter defeat can be classified as the defeat of a Prime Minister since Sir Harold was not leader in 1971.
The 1986 circumstance therefore distinguishes itself and a reflection on the electoral data speaks to the likelihood of history repeating itself.
In that instance, the BLP, which Sir Harold led, lost 14 seats and suffered an electoral swing of -12 per cent, which would have made it difficult for the BLP to save anything above the three seats it held.
In the case of his Christ Church East Central seat, he actually performed as badly as his party with a personal swing of -11 per cent; hence his loss could not be assessed as a bad personal performance. It could therefore be argued it was on account of his party’s shortcomings and not necessarily his bad performance.
We therefore need to pay close attention to how well or badly the candidate who is Prime Minister is likely to perform based on their personal history.
The historic performances of both Stuart and Lynch are presented on the appended chart which relied on the electoral swing analysis. It presents the personal and party swing for these candidates’ electoral contests since 1994.
Stuart’s performance since that time is actually quite respectable, notwithstanding he lost elections in 1999 and 2003. Ironically, his worst performance was in 1994 which was an election that he won, but his personal swing was almost twice as bad as the party’s which means that he won that seat based on the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) strong historic support in St Philip South.
In 1999, his loss was in spite of a performance that was actually a three per cent improvement on 1999, in a year when the DLP lost three per cent on average in its constituencies.
In 2003, the situation was similar and Stuart’s personal performance reflected an improvement of 11 per cent, while the DLP’s improvement was three per cent. In 2008, he again recorded a personal swing of 12 per cent, while the DLP’s was nine per cent.
Against this background, it could be argued that in recent times, Stuart is a candidate who can be relied upon to deliver a performance that is at least as good as the DLP’s, if not better.
The swing required to dislodge him is -10 per cent and a shift of that magnitude would result in an obliteration of the DLP, leaving it with only four seats.
The current swing trajectory of the DLP is not pointing to a victory, but it is also not suggesting a defeat of this magnitude (at this time).
The performance of Stuart’s opponent is also important and demonstrates an even more clear candidate trend. Lynch lost in 1994, but not on account of bad performance, since he only did slightly worse than his party at +4 per cent. At that time, Lynch shared the anti-DLP support with the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the DLP’s Sandiford emerged as an “unpopular” representative.
In 1999, he recorded a “personal best” improvement and added nine per cent to the DLP’s support there. Since then, Lynch has lost more support than the BLP each time he faced the polls, suggesting that he can match or exceed the BLP’s swing when that party does well, but he tends to do worse than the BLP when it does badly.
Speaking objectively, and employing that phrase often quoted by economists, “mutatis mutandis” (which is of course never applicable to human behaviour), Prime Minister Stuart is more likely than not to emerge victorious in 2013 since the swing against his party is trending below ten per cent at this stage.
The 1986 analysis also helps to support this pro-Stuart perspective since Sir Harold was an admittedly weak candidate, but was only one per cent off from his party’s support level in a political vortex that virtually obliterated the BLP. If therefore Stuart performs similarly, he should record a narrow victory over Lynch.
It is of course entirely possible that Lynch can win the 2013 election, even if the DLP’s swing does not approach the -10 per cent level. However, this would be a reflection of extreme dissatisfaction with Stuart as a representative, instead of extreme satisfaction with Lynch.
Summarily, the DLP would need to lose the election and the residents of St Michael South would also need to judge their representative more harshly than they have judged the DLP for the Prime Minister to lose his seat.
• Peter W. Wickham is a political consultant and a director of Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES).
