A member of Generation 2000 (G2K), the young professional affiliate of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) says the People’s National Party (PNP) outsmarted the JLP  to win last Thursday’s General Election.

The Portia Simpson Miller-led PNP romped to a comprehensive 41-22 seat victory and left the wounded JLP to wonder what went wrong.

In a release to the media entitled ‘Why did the JLP lose?’ the G2K member argued the recent registering of 40,000 new voters, who were 18 and 19-year-olds, led to the former government’s demise.

“In summary, why did the JLP lose? It has nothing to do with Mannatt or Dudus. It has nothing to do with Andrew Holness losing his shine. It is because the JLP was out-enumerated by the PNP in certain seats that were seen as marginal/critical. By playing fair and allowing the 40,000 persons to be added to the list the JLP was actually playing into the hands of the PNP,” the G2K member argued.

The Electoral Office of Jamaica reported that 48 per cent of the electorate cast their ballots – one of the lowest voter turnouts in the history of elections in the country.

Traditionally a low voter turnout favours the ruling party but that theory was dashed with the PNP’s crushing win and the G2K member argued that the PNP enumerated more voters in marginal constituencies.

The G2K member said the deck was stacked against the JLP.

“Personally, I believe that what the PNP did was begin by targeting certain marginal seats (like DK’s, Andre Hylton’s, Lloyd B Smith’s, Damion Crawford’s, Richard Creary’s, etc) and key seats (like Andrew Holness’ and Bunting’s). Once the chosen seats had been identified, the next step was to scour those seats for 18- and 19-year olds for enumeration. Once the new people were added, all that was left was to make sure they voted on election day,” the G2K member said.