For both parties, much analysis continues to determine the reasons for the loss by the People’s National Party (PNP) and how the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) literally snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. However, against any analysis, the numbers, particularly in marginal constituencies, really tell the story of how the JLP won the February 25, 2016 General Election.

Voter turnout

Significantly, the voter turnout proved the lowest for national elections since 1944, at 47.7 per cent, with the exception of what was recorded in the one-party 1983 poll. However, all of the marginal seats won by the JLP, except St James Central, recorded a higher voter turnout than the national outcome. The notion that a lower voter turnout tends to favour incumbents has been debunked. Now this view must be revised to that lower national turnout of an electorate can favour the incumbent depending on what happens at the constituency level. Also, national total votes and constituency voting patterns are not necessarily coterminous.

Strategy

The obvious strategy by the JLP was to retain all their seats won in 2011 and win all the marginal seats in order to form the Government. And that they accomplished.

A review of all 11 marginal seats that the JLP won makes for interesting observation.

St Andrew West Rural

The PNP’s Paul Buchanan could only hold on to the Brandon Hill Division by 504 votes in a constituency on par with the national average of all voters. However, the JLP’s Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn dominated the Stony Hill Division by amassing an additional 1,387 votes more than her predecessor polled in 2011. This impressive show of voter mobilisation made the difference in Cuthbert-Flynn’s decisive stamp on that victory. Even in the Red Hills Division, where PNP support usually counter-balances support of the JLP in Stony Hill, Cuthbert-Flynn polled 369 votes ahead of her rival.

St Andrew Eastern

This was one of the three keenly watched constituencies on February 25. This is because the constituency has been won by both JLP and PNP candidates; certainly since 1989 when Edmund Bartlett defeated Oswald Seymour but then lost to Colin Campbell in 1993 and 1997. Campbell went on to trounce then JLP Chairman Percy Broderick in 2002.

Whereas Hylton won the Papine Division by 284 votes, it was in the Mona Division that Fayval Williams pulled off the 161-vote victory. See Table One.

Data show that, although Hylton increased on his 2011 votes in Mona by 334 votes, Williams improved on her predecessor’s showing in the same division by 428 votes, while in the Papine Division, 75 more voters came out for Hylton in 2016, while the new MP increased the support garnered by Saphire Longmore in Mona in 2011 by a clear 396-vote margin. It is to be noted that Hylton did much better in that division from 2002 (2,658), 2007 (2,952), 2011 (3,522), and 2016 (3,856). Mobilisation on the day by Fayval Williams and the JLP made the difference.

St Andrew East Rural

This was the other contest that was keenly watched, mainly because a victory for the PNP would mean the party would have been re-elected, albeit by an equally narrow margin. So the keen contest between Juliet Holness and Imani Duncan-Price was set for a nail-biting finish. Juliet Holness won the seat by a comfortable 669 votes. This is how her mobilisation paid off on election day compared to the performance of Joan Gordon-Webley. See Table Two.

Juliet Holness performed ahead of her predecessor, except in Harbour View, as it was important for the JLP to draw its greatest strength from the hills and Gordon Town in 2016. The momentum started in Gordon Town with the JLP gaining 230 votes on its 2011 tally, while the PNP increased its support by only 15 votes.

Kintyre delivered for the JLP with Juliet Holness running ahead by an additional 424 votes. The question was whether Harbour View could wipe out that lead set by Holness from the hills and Gordon Town.

In Harbour View, with a strong PNP support base, 44.2 per cent of registered voters cast their ballots in 2016, a turnout below the national average in spite of a Duncan-Price majority of 1,312 votes. Incidentally, the PNP received 326 fewer votes on February 25, 2016 in Harbour View than it got on December 29, 2011 with a 50.8 per cent voter turnout. Juliet Holness’s win is even more significant as Imani Duncan-Price could only hope to win if the turnout in Harbour View was between 60 per cent to 70 per cent and the margin was much closer in Dallas and Kintyre.

St Mary Western

Bobby Montague’s poll result in St Mary Western is remarkable for three reasons. Firstly, he not only turned the tables on Jolyan Silvera, who defeated him in 2011, but he did so with the largest number of votes of any candidate. Montague polled 11,710 votes — ahead of Everald Warmington, St Catherine South Western (11,370); Shahine Robinson, St Ann North Eastern (10,821); Portia Simpson Miller, St Andrew South Western (10,792); Floyd Green, St Elizabeth South Western (10,152); and Juliet Holness, St Andrew East Rural (10,101).

Secondly, Montague increased his tally by 2,244 votes from his losing bid in 2011. This is so as one-third of the registered voters in St Mary Western cast their ballots for the new minister of national security.

Thirdly, Montague won in an arc stretching from east St Thomas to the border of St Ann, in which the PNP won Portland Eastern and St Mary South Eastern, on the either side of Daryl Vaz’s Portland Western seat. Next to St Mary Western, Morais Guy won in St Mary Central. This demonstrates that the cross-border voting pattern had little effect on Montague’s fortunes.

The PNP’s Jolyan Silvera trailed Montague in four of five divisions. In Oracabessa, where Silvera triumphed by a mere 82 votes, Montague increased his tally by 568 votes, in what is usually viewed as a PNP enclave. In the rest of the constituency, Montague increased his votes from 2011 to win by 252 votes in Carron Hall; Gayle by 956 votes, Boscobel by 641 votes, and in the strong JLP division of Retreat by 887 votes. The constituency of St Mary Western made it into the list of 20 constituencies that recorded a turnout of over 50 per cent.

St Ann South Western

This constituency was prime for the taking. A task attorney, Zavia Mayne, approached with studied seriousness in order to turn the defeat meted out to attorney Ernie Smith in 2011 to a JLP victory. Keith Walford took the seat in 2011 for the PNP by 822, but did not repeat his surprise victory in 2011. Instead, he lost by 337 votes.

Both contenders performed well, with Walford increasing his support by 324 while Mayne moved Ernie Smith’s support by 1,483 votes.

There was contrasting support across the constituency. Walford held on to the divisions of Calderwood and Borobridge, by 860 votes and 600 votes respectively. However, Mayne was able to mobilise his support base in Gibraltar and Alexandria to poll 1,112 and 664 votes to victory, making him one of six attorneys who won their seats for the JLP.

St James Central

Heroy Clarke lost narrowly to Lloyd B Smith in the 2011 election — 98 votes. In St James, that is not a margin that lends itself to overconfidence or self-assuredness. As the saying goes, “You can be taken out at the twinkling of an eye.” Where Lloyd B Smith garnered reasonable support in the inner city, economically depressed area of MoBay South, Shelly-Ann Foster did not have such good fortune; losing to Heroy Clarke by 561 votes. As a matter of fact, Clarke also triumphed in the other two divisions of MoBay south-east and Salt Spring.

Clarke always appeared serious, almost effortless of what he hopes to undertake. Foster portrayed a sense of confidence, almost that she was home and dry, oozing an oversupply of sunshine. Clarke obviously knew what Foster didn’t know — that he would be ahead by 1,919 votes when the dust settled.

St James West Central

This constituency enjoyed the distinction of being one of three contests involving women — the others being St Andrew East Rural and St Catherine North Central.

In all three divisions of St James West Central, Marlene Malahoo-Forte gained on the performance of Clive Mullings who represented the JLP in 2011. Sharon Ffolkes-Abrahams romped home in 2011 by 673 votes, but Marlene Malahoo-Forte — who scored 8,522 votes in Westmoreland against the formidable Roger Clarke in 2011 — had better fortunes in 2016, as the JLP obviously benefited from an appreciable swing in voter preference in western Jamaica, despite the turnout below the national average.

Hanover Eastern

The dramatic win of D K Duncan in 2011 demonstrated that Hanover Eastern, though traditionally favouring the JLP, remains a potentially marginal constituency. In 2016, the divisions of Hopewell and Chester Castle voted their usual JLP majority, even as voters in the traditional PNP Sandy Bay secured a majority of 843 votes. The key to which party wins this constituency is settled by the majority in either Hopewell or Sandy Bay, and the decider is rarely influenced by any result on either side of its borders.

St Elizabeth South Western

Since the contest between Donald Buchanan and Derrick Sangster in 2002, St Elizabeth South Western has been considered a marginal constituency. In 2002, Donald Buchanan won the seat by 110 votes. Christopher Tufton gained much in the constituency with the swing in 2007 towards the JLP, but reverted to a true marginal status in 2011 when Hugh Buchanan won by 13 votes. In other words, “any number can play”.

This time around, attorney Floyd Green stamped his imprimatur on the constituency with sufficient daylight of 2,057 votes. Green should be commended by polling more votes than Tufton did in 2007, and has surely placed St Elizabeth South Western as more of a swing seat rather than a marginal constituency.

St Elizabeth South Eastern

The striking point of interest is that the PNP polled 16 more votes in 2016 than it did in 2011 with a 61.7 per cent voter turnout. Frank Witter (JLP) was elected by less plurality of votes than he did in 2007 against Norman Horne as MP. Richard Parchment defeated Witter in 2011 by 970 votes, while Witter’s majority in 2016 is 305 votes, making St Elizabeth South Eastern a truly marginal contest for victory.

In four electoral divisions, constituents demonstrated equal loyalty on election day. Voters in Junction and Southfield made the difference for Frank Witter, while the divisions of Myersville and Malvern sternly supported the PNP. In closely contested seats, it is the candidate and party that can mobilise their base that can be assured of victory at the end of the voting day.

St Catherine East Central

The numbers in this constituency make for simple electoral calculation. The PNP has stronger support in Portmore Pines, while the JLP sits comfortably in the backyard of Gregory Park. So the contest has to be who can gain enough votes to win an overall majority out of Southboro. Take a look at the comparative results. See Table Three.

Arnaldo Brown (PNP) defeated Suzette Buchanan in 2011 by 558 votes largely by Buchanan’s less than effective responses in Southboro. In 2016, Alando Terrelonge was able to increase the JLP’s stocks in the same division by 238 votes, while Arnaldo Brown polled 99 votes less in the same division when compared to 2011.

New marginals

The numbers from these marginal seats tell their own stories of what worked and what did not redound to the benefit of the respective party. By the next general election there will be an adjusted list of marginal constituencies which should include:

1. St James Southern

2. St Andrew Eastern

3. St Mary South Eastern

4. Hanover Eastern

5. St Elizabeth South Eastern

6. St Catherine North Eastern

7. St Catherine East Central

Gladstone Wilson is an attorney-at-law and former general manager of the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. Send comments to the Observer orMapletoft@hotmail.com.