The September 3, 2025 General Election will be unlike any other parliamentary poll in modern Jamaican history.

In the last set of polls commissioned by two media houses one is predicting a landslide victory while the other is predicting a tight race between both major political parties. Both scenarios cannot be true, but a day in politics is a long time.

The People’s National Party’s (PNP) path to Jamaica House will not be easy. It has the unenviable and herculean task of maintaining its current 14 seats and must wrestle at least 18 seats from the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) if it is to secure 32 seats.

Its base is highly energised. For the first time since 2012 the party can smell victory and is hoping to consolidate on the gains made in the local government elections of February 2024. It will also be hoping to benefit from a late bounce from its performance in the national debates. My PNP friends and family members who did not vote in 2020 have all indicated they will be voting for their party come Wednesday morning.

The PNP’s path to Jamaica House will be blocked if the party cannot retake 17 “safe PNP voting seats”. I use this term loosely, only because, despite the anomaly of 2020, this general election may redefine safe seats.

These 17 seats are based on historical voting trends over the last five general elections: three in Westmoreland (Western, Eastern and Central); two in Hanover (Western and Eastern); Central Kingston; St Thomas Eastern; Clarendon South Western; Clarendon North Western; Manchester Southern; Manchester Central; Trelawny Northern; St Ann North Western; St Catherine South Eastern; St Elizabeth North Eastern; St James Southern; and St Mary South Eastern.

If the PNP can hold its current 14 seats and retake the 17 seats listed above, that translates to 31 seats — one seat short of taking back Jamaica House. If that were to play out, those trends would represent a massive national swing towards Mark Golding and the PNP. They would only need to flip one more seat in order to secure victory.

However, based on my own anecdotal reading of the political tea leaves, Rhoda Moy Crawford in Manchester Central, Tova Hamilton in Trelawny Northern, and Krystal Lee in St Ann North Western — despite the challenges in these constituencies — will take home these three seats for the JLP. Assuming this scenario holds true, this would leave the PNP with a four-seat deficit.

The JLP is hoping to ride its momentum into the general election and secure its historic third term, a feat achieved only by former Prime Minister PJ Patterson and the PNP. The JLP has sensed that its aggressive social media campaign and having Dr Andrew Holness meeting and talking to voters from every nook and cranny across Jamaica is helping to move undecided voters, including senior citizens, in the column of the JLP.

The JLP is aggressively trying to consolidate the gains made in the 2020 General Election and hold some of those “safe” PNP seats. If it manages to do that, it would most certainly redefine our understanding of safe seats in modern Jamaican politics and perhaps, more importantly, secure its place in political history. It has smelt political blood in places like Manchester North Western, where the PNP incumbent Mikael Phillips is defending a margin of 723, and a razor-thin margin of 14 in St Ann South Eastern, once a solid bastion for the PNP. The party will be depending on the ‘Andrew Holness effect’ and its record in Government.

Of the 49 seats it will be defending, the party can only lose 17 if it is to retain Government. The JLP knows the only polls that matter will be the one on September 3. The party learnt its lesson from the February 2024 local government elections about getting every single vote out and putting in place every possible contingency.

Some political commentators and pollsters have argued that this election will either be a landslide victory or an extremely close election for either party. For me, however, on election night, I will be glued to the results of the three “weathervane seats” of South Western and South Eastern St Elizabeth and St Mary Western. These three seats have voted with the party that has formed the Government in general elections since 1993. Barring any anomaly, where they go, Jamaica will go.

— Andrew King is a public affairs commentator with an interest in public policy and politics.