AS PARTIES in Guyana prepare for  nomination of candidates for the coming November 28 presidential and parliamentary elections, there are new indications that Jamaica may be unofficially pressing ahead for a snap general election, either before Christmas or early next year. An assessment of media reports out of Kingston suggests that an imminent snap poll could pose hitherto unforeseen problems for the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) of Portia Simpson-Miller. The party, after all, has been immersed in planning its election offensive with expectations that it would be Bruce Golding, the current Prime Minister and leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) who would be the primary focus of the campaign strategy.
But the recent announcement by Golding to step down as both Prime Minister and party leader, even ahead of next month’s annual convention of the incumbent JLP, appears to have caught the PNP off-guard and it’s now reported to be hastily adjusting strategies to deal instead with a JLP under his soon-to be successor, Education Minister Andrew Holness, who is already being promoted as Prime Minister-designate.
Yesterday, amid reports that Police Commissioner Owen Ellington had alerted the Police Force to be in readiness for a likely snap poll by mid-December, there came a strong warning from the PNP’s election campaign director, Dr Peter Phillips, that the JLP administration must avoid calling a new election on the current voters register.
A former Minister of National Security in the last PNP administration, Phillips told a public meeting that the government must understand that “the 42,000 young people, who were recently enumerated, should be given a chance to exercise their franchise…”
At present there are approximately 1.06 million Jamaicans on the voters register, representing an increase of over 300,000 eligible electors at the time of the 2007 general election.
Constitutionally, a new general election could be held by December 2012, but all indicators point to rapid preparations for a snap poll, partly inspired by the results of public opinion polls that give the incumbent JLP a more than favourable jump ahead of the PNP with Holness as party leader and sitting Prime Minister.
For its part, the Electoral Office in Jamaica (EOJ) has been recently complaining against not receiving sufficient funding to be in full readiness for a new parliamentary election.
We have no doubts that given their own commitment to free and fair elections, and recognizing the high esteem in which the EOJ is held for its independence, both the governing and opposition parties will move to resolve current differences over completion of arrangements for the new general election, whether a snap one or some time before September. We think it will be sooner than later.