Despite the multifaceted and varied assessments of the final results of the recently concluded 2024 local government elections, for which the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) declared the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) to have won, albeit by a paper-thin margin, with seven local authorities to the Opposition People’s National Party’s (PNP) six, inclusive of the Portmore Municipality, there is every expectation that Opposition Leader Mark Golding’s mass-based re-energised PNP will be advancing to the 18th general election since 1944, whenever it is called, as the dominant political force in Jamaica at this time.

This is because the party, being saddled with a fractious image up to the time of the calling of the elections, which pundits and civil society likened onto a mini-general (referendum) election for both parties and their leaders, was able, nonetheless, to capture the popular vote, in excess of 300,000, against the seemingly impervious Andrew Holness-led JLP and winning in the process some 115 local government divisions, up from 98 in the local government election of 2016, which it lost.

In strict political terms the PNP can be expected, in light of this commendable performance, to set about in the months ahead to demonstrate to the JLP Administration that while it continues to enjoy the authority to govern, the PNP — notwithstanding the low voter turnout — now has the people power to rule from the periphery.

Recent opinion polls, after all, did confirm that a swing away from the JLP was a distinct possibility heading into any election, and this outcome has given the PNP very concrete reasons to now give practical, and more vocal, street and community-level expression to its simmering disapproval of the Government’s perceived mishandling of the country, epitomised, inter alia, by a discredited trickle-down economic model, the stumbling block of a coercive power steeped in the norm of exploitative scandals and corrupt conduct, not to mention the deep sense of insecurity borne by thousands under the oppressive weight of marauding gunmen and criminals.

Of course, it can be argued, as
The Gleaner editorial has on more than one occasion, that for its part the PNP is yet to present to the broad mass of the electorate a coherent set of policy options which would form the distinguishing hallmark between itself and the Government, with respect to delivering a sane, incorruptible, accountable, and equitable future for the country in the remainder of the 21st century.

But, as every absorbed student of politics knows, in our Westminster-type political system hardly any of this matters. What is important is that historically the enduring complex power relationships between the PNP and the JLP require the party without formal power to devise strategies and stratagems of resistance to survive when both parties more often than not are mirror images of each other. What one does is bound to impact the actions of the other.

So now that the electorate in the recent local government elections has given the PNP a popularity bump, the party, in turn, will likely interpret this as a call to relegitimise itself as a rightful – and serious – participant in the governmental process. In this context, whatever may be the analysis to the contrary by the governing JLP, the poll results indicate that the electorate would probably prefer the PNP rather than the governing party to now call the shots.

None of this should surprise us. The narrowing of the gap in the election between the authority of the current (local) governors and the collective will of the popular that now rules is obviously mediated by economic factors. The JLP’s offer in 2016 of better management of affairs, it will be recalled, did prove seductive to many Jamaicans and they in turn yielded largely without intimidation. Now, eight years later, many of those same Jamaicans feel that the issues of governance must inevitably turn on satisfaction with the social and economic policies pursued by the Government of the day.

Regrettably, however, the social and economic policies of the Government have largely resulted in the continuing marginalisation of multiple of thousands due to continuing unemployment and the failure of those who govern to deliver, as they promised they would, on the basis of wise financial husbandry and better public management characterised by integrity, transparency, and honesty. Since 2016, time and collective experience have unmistakenly placed much of this into perspective, so much so that it is the PNP that now has the kind of moral authority that the governing JLP and its Members of Parliament should really have.

Of course, how the PNP chooses to utilise its new-found power of rulership without governorship in light of its electoral performance is left to be seen. I suspect that it is not fully ready to do battle with a well-oiled JLP election machine should general elections be called anytime soon. And it is not that it is not brimming with the confidence and fresh ideas of a political party certain of its destiny in the hands of the electorate, especially when only 29.6 per cent of them bothered to cast their votes in the elections, thus leaving a staggering 70 per cent signalling a great deepening erosion of faith in the political process.

This unfolding political catastrophe clearly represents a great danger to the future viability of our entrenched democracy and political system as we have come to know and experience them since Independence in 1962. In the years since then the voters, in increasingly large numbers, have steadfastly and emphatically shunned the idea of prosperity being made a creature of political power, which, in their view, has been perverted to the corrupt and naked self-interest of politicians. On this score I am convinced that they want their material interests protected and their self-worth acknowledged in any system of representation they must deal with. Perhaps more than a sizeable few, unlike before, no longer need the patronage of politics and politicians to survive.

In light of this, the society, inclusive of those with ambition to lead, must acknowledge that these are extremely challenging times for the politics of expectations and progressive governments. As such, if the PNP under Golding’s leadership is not to squander its new-found power from the periphery, it must recognise first and foremost that “people power” – or the power of the natural rulers in a democracy – is more than a slogan. It speaks to a logic of democratic politics that is admittedly more easily declared than practised.

In the present dispensation in which the party finds itself, democracy has as much to do with substance as with form. This means that while the recent poll results and trends point to popular disaffection with the JLP, they do not signal summary rejection just yet of the current governors, neither do they signal an early general election or a definite third term for Holness and the JLP.

The months ahead in the politics of Jamaica will be anything but dull. While the PNP attends to fine-tuning its internal architecture and shaping a government of all the talents in waiting, it now has an excellent opportunity going forward to use its captive audience in most parishes to prepare itself for the future administration of this country. It may not get another opportunity like this again for some serious political education of the electorate about its vision for a more viable, stable, and inclusive social structure and economic hope.

Going forward, however, the party must guard against the danger of a “win-already” mentality in the forthcoming general election, which can only serve to blur the vision of many within its ranks and feed the impatience that has always been the bane of power seekers.

Everton Pryce is a former Hubert H Humphrey Fulbright fellow.