-Guyana and St Lucia, with eyes on Jamaica
Analysis by Rickey Singh
            LAST MONDAY’S general elections in Guyana and St.Lucia have produced two sharply contrasting results: an unprecedented political challenge for a consecutive fifth term People’s Progressive Party/Civic government in Georgetown, and a decisive defeat for the one-term United Workers Party(UWP) administration in Castries by Kenny Anthony’s St Lucia Labour Party (SLP).
            The crucial challenge for the PPP/C—whose first-time presidential candidate, Donald Ramotar, was scheduled to be sworn in yesterday (Sat) as Guyana’s new Executive President—scored an outright victory at the November 28 presidential, regional and parliamentary elections. It, however, failed, by a single seat, to also secure a majority in the 65-member National Assembly.
            The final, official results, as declared by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) were: PPP/C—the presidency and 32 parliamentary seats with the single largest bloc of votes (48.6 percent); main opposition APNU (A Partnership for National Unity) 26 seats with 40.8 percent; and the Alliance for Change (AFC) seven seats with 10.3 percent of the votes. The high voter turn-out was estimated at almost 73 percent.
      As a consequence of this surprising outcome, the PPP/C now faces the very challenging task, for the first time in its long history of forming governments, of managing a minority of one in parliament against the combined 33 votes of the two opposition parties in the 65-member House.
            *Across in St.Lucia, the incumbent UWP of one-term Prime Minister Stephenson King was quick to demonstrate political sophistication in publicly congratulating the SLP on its victory. The final results highlighted a complete reversal in electoral fortunes to that of the 2006 general election when Anthony’s then two-term SLP was defeated by the UWP by a 11-7 majority.
      This time around, following the first disclosure of official results that gave the SLP a  10-6 majority on Monday night, recounts led  to an additional seat going by Thursday to Labour and with two of the UWP’s former cabinet ministers escaping defeat by merely two and seven votes. Four of their ministerial colleagues were not that fortunate.
Interesting similarities
      For the Barbadian political scientist and pollster, Peter Wickham, the defeat of King’s one-term UWP should be a “wake-up” call for Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart,in the management of the current first- term Democratic Labour Party (DLP) government he inherited through  the death of Prime Minister David Thompson–and with new elections  expected within the next 13 months.
      In pointing to some political similarities, Wickham referenced the fact that in both St Lucia and Barbados merely three percent of the overall popular valid votes had separated the then incumbents and their respective challengers
      Further, as King was in relation to the UWP administration he headed in St.Lucia—following the passing of Sir John Compton–Stuart in Barbados also became Prime Minister with the death of the DLP’s leader and, therefore, not as the direct result of a general election.
      This sort of reasoning could also perhaps be applicable to Jamaica where the current Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, recently rose to that position as a consequence of the resignation in September of the then Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader and Prime Minister, Bruce Golding.
      Today (Sun) when Holness is expected to announce the date for a snap general election (constitutionally due by September 2012), he cannot afford to forget the very close outcome of the 2007 poll under Golding’s leadership.
      The party had managed to end four successive terms of government by the then incumbent People’s National Party (PNP) with a four-seat parliamentary majority, but merely a  one percent plurality of the valid popular votes.
     
      Proportional  Representation
     
      And that was by virtue of the first-past-the-post, or winner takes all electoral system, one that currently obtains throughout CARICOM—other than in Guyana, where it is wholly proportional representation (PR), and Suriname—the latter with a mix of both.
            When PR was first introduced in Guyana in 1964, ahead of arrangements for independence from Britain and amid political turmoil, the then incumbent PPP had still emerged as the party with the single largest bloc of votes but not a plurality of parliamentary seats that went to the two opposition challengers—People’s National Congress (PNC) of Forbes Burnham and Peter D’Aguiar’s United Force (UF).
            Now, 47 years later, in 2011, there is the historical difference in the application of the PR voting system with the PPP winning the presidency and securing the single largest bloc of votes and seats, but short of a parliamentary majority of one .Hence, the need, at this stage, to form a minority government, while considering other options.
            At the time of writing, President-elect, Ramotar, a 61-year –old economist, who has been for the past 14 years, General Secretary of the PPP, was telling the media that he welcomed the opportunity to work along with the parliamentary opposition “in the interest of Guyana’s continuing progress and national unity…”
            Undoubtedly, we will be hearing more of such thinking in the days and weeks ahead—from both the governing PPP and the combined one-seat majority parliamentary opposition.
      As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In this instance, not what they SAY, but DO. After all, it takes two to tango. Except that for the current post-election Guyana political situation, the choreography would require three not just two….PPP, APNU and AFC.
      The appointment of a Prime Minister (expected to again be Samuel Hinds for a fifth time), will take place after the lists of names of parliamentarians are extracted from the identified candidates for last Monday’s poll, followed by the relevant oath-taking ceremonies.