Jamaica - Politics - 1990s
Incumbent Prime Minister Percival Patterson announced on 10 March 1993 that early general elections would be held on 30 March. He had succeeded Prime Minister Michael Manley in 1992 when the latter had resigned for health reasons.
The two main contenders were Mr. Patterson’s social-democratic People’s National Party (PNP) and former Prime Minister Edward Seaga’s conservative Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). The three-week campaign was marred by violence, which left at least 10 people including an election supervisor, dead. The PNP government had just granted significant salary increases to teachers and the police. It advocated free-market policies and stated its intention to privatize State-owned corporations and deregulate the foreign exchange market. In addition, it promised to pay attention to the problems of the public transport sector. As for the JLP, it accused Mr. Patterson of racist overtones in his campaign and denounced the scandals that had plagued the PNP’s management of the country.
Polling was fraught with violent incidents in spite of an undertaking by candidates of both parties to restrain their supporters. Voting operations had to be suspended in at least one constituency (Kingston, the capital) as a result of this violence. Voter turnout was about 60%, the lowest rate in Jamaica’s post-independence history. This relatively high abstention rate was widely attributed to voter apathy because of the similarity between the two parties programmes and the habit of giving each party two terms in office. On election day, the PNP won a landslide victory (the largest in Jamaica’s history of free elections), with a total of 51 seats. Mr. Seaga denounced the results, alleging fraud and irregularities and announced that the JLP would boycott Parliament until an enquiry was conducted into these allegations and reforms carried out in the security services and electoral sector.
The 1997 general elections were called on 26 November by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson (People’s National Party - PNP). The campaign was thus relatively short, lasting 22 days.
The main challenge to the ruling (since 1989) PNP once again came from the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) headed by former Premier Edward Seaga. A second threat came from the newly founded National Democratic Movement (NDM) led by Mr. Bruce Golding. These three parties altogether fielded 197 candidates for the 60 House seats. Four fringe parties and six independent individuals were also in the running. Pre-election opposition debate related to a great extent to the country’s ailing economy and rising murder rate.
As opposed to other recent campaigns, that of 1997 was generally free of violent incidents. On 17 December, the leaders of the three major parties signed a code of conduct designed to ensure a peaceful polling atmosphere. As a result, voting day - monitored by local and foreign observers, including a 60-member team from the US-based Carter Center - was largely calm but marked by a comparatively low turnout by Jamaican standards. Former US President Jimmy Carter characterise the polling «generally fair » but involving « some serious problems ». Final results gave the socialist PNP a total of 49 seats (with two results pending), thus returning it to power for an unprecedented third consecutive term (neither it nor the JLP had had more than two since independence in 1962). In this context, Mr. Patterson remained Prime Minister and his reshuffled Cabinet was sworn in on 3 January 1998.
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