The final two months of 2011 will long be recalled as the season of national elections within the Caribbean Community. There were the unprecedented two on the same day (November 28) in  Guyana and St. Lucia. Now comes a  general election on December 29 in Jamaica,  believed to be the first to occur during the week of Christmas.
Except for that unprecedented period for almost a quarter of a century in Guyana, lasting until 1992, free and fair elections remain the traditional norm for scheduled democratic multi-party, parliamentary elections in the English-speaking Caribbean. It has much to do with our Region’s general historical embrace of the Westminster system of governance—warts and all.
Whatever their respective ideological preferences and concepts of social and economic development, the political parties know only too well the likely resentment, and worse, of the electorate when uncertainties emerge over delays or re-scheduling of constitutionally due national elections.
What, however, so frequently occurs following these national elections is the pathetic failure of too many administrations to govern in a democratic manner that reflects respect for the verdict of the electorate as expressed and documented on election day.
Best known of such political shortcomings are the failures of governing parties to ignore the necessity for structured consultations between a Head of Government and Leader of the Opposition and, generally, framing and implementation of policies as if to make a charade of the multi-party system of governance.
Worse, interaction between a Prime Minister and Opposition Leader is more a rarity than the norm, conveying in the process the impression among the electorate of an institutionalised division that must be sustained—until another general election.
Or, as George  Lamming has observed in his inimitable style, the scheduled five-year “cockfights”.
This prevailing, defective pattern of democratic governance perhaps also explains why there continues to be disrespect among ruling and opposition parliamentary parties for the decision taken over a decade ago for CARICOM to involve the official parliamentary opposition in dialogue, at least either prior to or during the regular annual CARICOM Summit.
First, the Region’s peoples would undoubtedly welcome a pattern of structured consultations between Heads of Government and Opposition Leaders at the national level. This must happen here in Barbados and right across the Caribbean Community.
For now, our hope is that the coming December 29 poll in Jamaica will be peaceful and that the two parties that have been dominating governance of that Community partner state long before Independence, will conduct their campaign in a manner that discourages any inclination towards political violence of the past which had done much damage to the country’s image.
(The above editorial appeared in yesterday’s edition of the Barbados ‘Daily Nation’, and is reproduced courtesy of that newspaper)