Theologian Peter Espeut says Christians will have to decide which of the island’s two major political parties “will be the least of the two evils” when deciding how to vote in the upcoming general election.

Espeut, the dean of studies at St Michael’s Theological College, made the comment during a virtual forum staged by the Association of Christian Communicators and Media (ACCM) on Sunday evening.

“I think what we are faced with in every election — this one and every other one — is that we have to decide whether there is anyone we can vote for. If we can vote for anybody, because they are wanting to help build the kingdom of God, if they want to establish right relationships, but if there is nobody we can vote for because both are equally evil, then we have to decide if there’s anybody that we would be required to vote against,” Espeut told the forum, which was examining the topic ‘The Power of the Christian Vote’.

“Is there anybody that is more evil than the other one? Is there anybody that to vote for them would take us further away from the Kingdom than voting for the other one?” added Espeut, who was a panellist.

“In my view, voting is not a simple matter either. Both sides are evil, both sides have done good things, but in every case you have to judge on its merits, and in the context and I think in this particular case Christians have to decide which of these two evil parties that have garrisons and gunmen and thugs, and so on, and tell lies and cuss bad word, and so on, which of these two evil parties is the least of the two evils. And I think in the end that is how Christians are going to have to vote in this election,” Espeut argued.

According to Espeut, one major decider should be for Christians, “to examine whether the two parties offering themselves, whether any of them will try to restrict religious freedoms”, particularly as it relates to schools.

“We know there are two types of schools in Jamaica — schools owned by the Church and schools owned by the Government — and the Government came out recently with guidelines for prayer in schools to restrict the length of time for prayers and the days of the week it could be done, and those of us in the Church took that as a threat to religious freedom,” Espeut declared.

“Really and truly, we have to question the politicians whether they intend to restrict religious freedoms in our schools. Last week the chair of the Education Transformation Committee said the Government wants more control over schools and that they want to revise the school board system to give the ministry more power over schools. Christians who are going to vote cannot vote for anybody that is going to restrict the rights of churches over their own schools,” Espeut contended.

“People have to decide which of these two evil parties will be the least of the two evils and I think in the end, that is how Christians will have to vote,” Espeut said in a parting shot.

Byron Buckley, second vice-president of ACCM, said Christians, given the sheer power of their numbers, have to come to a consensus on what they will do with their vote.

Contending that the Church is a “sleeping giant” he said, “It is time we flex our muscles and loose the bands of political affiliation.”

In the meantime, pollster Don Anderson, in noting that there isn’t a lot of empirical data tracking the voting patterns of Christians, said Christians have been proven to vote based on issues such as the retention of the buggery law.

“This topic is a challenging one, but only because there is not a lot of empirical data. The reality is that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no really significant data available on the participation of Christians in an election. The last established piece of information we have from Statin [Statistical Institute of Jamaica] in 2011 is that 69 per cent of our voting population are Christians. So, whilst I wouldn’t expect there to be a significant degree of change in that data between 2011 and 2025 we have to recognise that we are looking at some rough numbers,” he said.

According to Anderson, it is important that data be collected to help assess the participation of Christians in the polls for future elections.

He said, in the meantime, however, “there is nothing to suggest that the 38 per cent voter turnout in the last elections were not significantly made up of Christians”.

“When you have a piece of data where 80 per cent of the people were a certain way and you have 70 per cent of the people being Christians in that population, I would expect a significant percentage of them to be Christians who are against the repeal of the buggery law. I would expect Christians to be heavily represented in that 38 per cent that voted otherwise. We would have to find a reason to explain why the Christian vote would be significantly less or more in that 38 per cent who voted,” Anderson stated.

In the 2020 parliamentary elections there was a 37.85 per cent voter turnout. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) won a resounding victory, with 49 seats in the 63-member House of Representatives.

In the 1980 General Election, with an 80 per cent voter turnout, the JLP secured more than half of the seats.