JAMAICA:
First Woman PM Edged Out
By Peter Ischyrion
KINGSTON, Sep 11 (IPS) - In the end, the electorate said no. Portia Simpson
Miller, the first woman to head a government in Jamaica, had appealed to
voters to affirm her mandate by re-electing the People's National Party
(PNP), which she led into a general election on Sep. 3 for the first time.
They refused, and as Bruce Golding, 58, takes the oath
of office as the new prime minister later Tuesday, ending 18 years of
political wilderness for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), the populist
Simpson Miller, 62, will no doubt be contemplating her future in Jamaican
politics.
The JLP won 33 of the 60 seats contested in the
general election that observers, including those from the Caribbean
Community and the Organisation of American States (OAS), said had adequately
reflected the will of the population even though the campaign had been
plagued by violence -- though not on the scale of the 1980 poll when more
than 800 people were killed.
Both parties blamed each other for the violence, which
at one stage threatened the cancellation of voting in some constituencies.
However, the OAS later indicated that the "work of the Election Centre and
the active participation of stakeholders in this mechanism helped facilitate
a peaceful environment for the holding and management of the elections".
In the 2002 general election when, under the
leadership of PJ Patterson, the PNP retained power for an unprecedented
fourth term, it did so with an eight-seat majority and a five percent lead,
or 37,027 more votes than those cast for the JLP.
This time round, the margin of victory is so tiny that
the JLP received 405,215 ballots or 50.1 percent of the popular vote,
compared with the 402,275 or 49.7 percent secured by the PNP.
Such was the closeness of the victory in some
constituencies that Simpson Miller refused to concede defeat on the night
the preliminary results were announced.
"This election is too close to call. There are a
number of seats the PNP will be taking action against. We are not going to
standby and allow people to use criminals to decide the future of
Jamaica," she
added.
The Jamaica Observer newspaper was critical of the
decision by Simpson-Miller.
"If we had any doubt that Prime Minister Portia
Simpson Miller was not fit for the job, we no longer do. Her ungracious
speech Monday night after her party's defeat at the polls was shocking, to
say the least," the paper said in an editorial.
"Conceding defeat, especially after a bruising
contest, is the patriotic duty of great leaders who know that they must send
the right signal to a nation that would have been divided by a long and
often bitter rivalry," it said.
It took the PNP leader one full week to concede that
her party had indeed lost -- though it was not washed away by a tsunami, as
some pollsters had predicted.
In extending congratulations to Golding, she told
supporters she would continue "to work hard to ensure the protection of the
rights of all our people, particularly of our children and the poor".
The tradition of campaigns focusing on the party
leaders had continued in this election.
"Clearly, the PNP misunderstood the high level of
support for Simpson Miller and believed it was a reflection of support for
her style and perhaps that she would be permitted to conduct her politics
nationally in a way similar to the more parochial level at which she
operated," said political scientist Peter Wickham.
Wickham said that while many Jamaicans were fascinated
by the idea of a woman prime minister, "this did not mean she would be
measured by standards that were any different from those applicable to the
men previously in that post".
Many commentators say Golding may have won the
election based on the debate between the two leaders, a first for Jamaican
politics. Most analysts had scored Golding as outperforming Simpson Miller
in his grasp of national issues and the presentation of his party's message.
Pollster Bill Johnson said he believed that voters
were "looking for a reason why they should vote for the PNP, whereas the JLP
has given a reason, albeit not a strong one, of the need for a change".
Simpson Miller, who made history by becoming the
country's first female prime minister in 2006, enjoyed popular support among
Jamaicans, especially the working class, and her charisma and long-time
advocacy on behalf of the poor made her a loveable figure.
Golding, on the other hand, was viewed as being
bright, if not warm and charismatic. But towards the end of the campaign his
approval ratings climbed, with at least one poll putting him ahead of
Simpson Miller as the leader more favoured to run the country at this time.
Political commentator Dr. Paul Ashley acknowledged
that the stakes in the election were very high, with the loser facing the
real prospect of political oblivion.
Election Day was "the most important day for both
leaders because it seems to me that the loser will ride off into the
sunset," Ashley said of both Simpson Miller and Golding, who were leading
their respective parties into a general election for the first time.
Political commentators had long argued that Simpson
Miller faced a difficult task in uniting the party she took over from PJ
Patterson in a bitter presidential election last year and Ashley had also
wondered whether the PNP would have been able to go into the elections
putting "party first instead of personalities".
Another political commentator, Michael Burke, recalled
that during the "long and bitter presidential race" for the leadership of
the PNP, none of the four aspirants had been able to receive more than 50
percent of the vote, and that the party was plagued by "disunity".
During the campaign, Golding and the JLP accused the
PNP of failing to effectively manage the affairs of the country over the
past 18 years. He said that since 1989, with the exception of the first two
years, Jamaica had never experienced as much as three percent economic
growth for two consecutive years, and that the country had accumulated some
460,000 unemployed.
He also noted that the murder rate had increased from
413 in
1988 to 1,500 today, and many children were leaving school without being
able to read or write.
"We cannot continue to operate like this. We can do
better than this," he said.
The electorate agreed.