THE 70th anniversary of Jamaica’s attainment of Universal Adult Suffrage is a landmark event for our island. It exemplifies the country’s commitment, however uneven, to the empowerment and engagement of its people.

The voter turnout of 58.7 per cent in the general election on December 14, 1944, the first after the extension of the franchise, reads almost similarly to that in our last parliamentary elections — 53.17 per cent on December 29, 2011.

The endowment of the right to vote to all Jamaican citizens over 21 years old — a corollary of the New Constitution of 1944 — was one of the first political measures taken towards self-rule. The Constitution, which was signed on October 27, 1944 and published in the Jamaica Gazette on November 17 of that year, allowed for greater representation of an expanded electorate.

These changes meant the full restoration of an elected legislature after nearly 80 years’ suspension when Crown Colony rule had replaced representative government in response to the 1865 uprisings.

Under the Crown Colony’s Legislative Council, members who were nominated by the governor — the emissary of the British monarch who was head of the Government in Jamaica — outnumbered and/or dominated elected delegates.

The 1944 Constitution enabled Jamaican adult citizens, regardless of background, including all women for the first time, to vote for an elected House of Representatives, giving voice to their issues and concerns. The enfranchisement of ordinary Jamaicans marked the end of Crown Colony rule and the start of constitutional decolonisation.

How and why the 1944 reforms emerged

The island’s acquisition of suffrage was not an occasion of happenstance. At home, there was a growing consciousness and awareness of rights ignited by declining social and economic conditions, politicised returning migrants, fledgling pan-African black and other ethnic sensibilities and trade unionism.

During the 1930s, the working class in Jamaica and the British Caribbean commanded the attention of Whitehall by laying bare the grievances in their working and civilian lives, including abysmal wages, long hours, and general exploitation in a series of insurgencies which peaked in 1938.

Middling-class Jamaicans, groomed as heir apparent to colonial leadership, seized upon the initiative of labour protesters and the groundswell created to mobilise a nationalist movement pushing for autonomy and self-government. Most elements in this group believed in gradualist reform, as opposed to revolutionary action, and agreed that Universal Adult Suffrage — the extension of the vote to the adult masses — should be the first step to reaching their objectives.

Preparing the people for suffrage

They sought to ready the population for suffrage (Jamaica’s illiteracy rate in the 1930s was recorded at 23.9 per cent) by facilitating courses in civics and political education, rights and responsibilities and the rudiments of the Westminster Parliamentary system, which they planned to follow in the new dispensation. Knowledge of democratic ideology and egalitarian rhetoric was largely the province of leaders of trade unions from the middling strata and isolated elements of the labouring classes.

Among the most structured political education initiatives were those spearheaded by Frank Hill and his brother Ken who, during their tenure with the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) from 1938-39, delivered courses for:

* The Negro Workers’ Educational League;

* The Left Book Club;

* Readers and writers clubs; and

* Study groups.

They also offered these classes through agencies of the People’s National Party (PNP), namely:

* The Metropolitan Group (the party’s main Kingston branch); and

* The Propaganda and Organising Committee

Teachers from the primary (then elementary) school level — mostly black people — were the single largest professional group which registered for these courses.

The British mindset

At the same time, the introduction of suffrage was an outcome of changing attitudes in Whitehall. By the 1940s, the British Government, whether under Labour or Conservative leadership, was increasingly amenable to the divestment of Empire for a number of reasons:

* The colonies were an increasing drain on the Exchequer (when Britain was about to enter war recovery mode);

* Britain wanted to be seen to be progressive to protect its prestige and standing, particularly in light of emerging international humanitarian bodies (UN in 1945); it had built its name since at least the Victorian period on showing itself as a paragon of fair play and civility. Moreover, Whitehall was aware that, in the context of its war campaign against Hitler and Nazi Germany and its promotion of democracy, Britain still being in possession of an empire was more susceptible to charges of hypocrisy;

* Britain wanted to secure privileged position in relations with the US, a rising power and one of the fiercest anti-colonial critics, despite America’s own Empire (Puerto Rico, etc);

* They were affected by protests in the Caribbean, India and other parts of Empire and were therefore more open to granting self-rule to Jamaica (preferably under a system of Federation).

British officials believed that decolonisation, when it happened, should follow a timetable and an orderly transition, the first step of which was to be Universal Adult Suffrage.

A watershed moment for Jamaica in this regard came with the release of a despatch from the colonial secretary of state, in February 1943, announcing the launch of a constitutional reform which culminated in the new legislation the following year.

Notwithstanding the complex interplay of factors which led to Universal Adult Suffrage in Jamaica, our country is a steady, consistent, advanced, even if imperfect democracy because of its effects.

— Dr Khitanya Petgrave is a project manager at the Ministry of Education and member of the advisory team to the minister of education