Don Anderson | Divided parties do not win elections

The opposition People’s National Party has found itself in a pretty difficult situation because it has failed to recognise the time-honoured perspective that divided parties don’t normally win elections. The party has been racked recently by a succession of internal challenges and conflicts that have dogged its performance at the national level and at local elections. This state of affairs is likely to continue unless and until the party manages to achieve an acceptable level of real, not feigned, unity within the shortest possible time. Every democratic country needs a viable opposition. At the moment, the PNP is not shaping up to be that.

The historical perspective

Up to 2006, the PNP had been perceived to be a party that demonstrate, or at least portray, a good measure of unity. The words of the late Dr D.K. Duncan, then and before, still ring in my ears. “It is not that the party does not have its quarrels, but it is able to manage disunity well.” This was against the background of what seemed to be a fractured and fractious JLP opposition under the leadership of Edward Seaga.

When then PNP President and Prime Minister P.J. Patterson declared in 2006 that he was stepping down, some five contenders threw their hats in the ring in an election to succeed him. In a poll conducted by me for The Gleaner shortly after these announcements were made, one of the main findings was that this multicandidate race was actually viewed as a sign of democracy, not divisiveness, with some 60 per cent saying so.

That was the PNP then.

The bruising internal contest that followed ended with the election of Portia Simpson Miller as the first female leader of the party.

That election of 2006 seemed, however, to have opened up wounds that existed under the surface of the apparent peace and unity within the party. The party narrowly lost the 2007 election, with the JLP winning 32 seats to the PNP’s 28.

Over the last 12 years, the party has been rocked by a number of internal elections and intra-party strife that have brought to the surface deep wounds that have made the party less attractive. In 2008, Dr Peter Phillips challenged then opposition leader Portia Simpson Miller. That campaign was bitterly contentious and led to a strained relationship between the two that many feel has not yet been resolved. Dr Phillips recently admitted that this was an error on his part as he underestimated the level of divisiveness in the party. The open wounds did not prevent the party from winning the 2011 elections, with many attributing their success in those elections to the problems associated with the JLP administration under Golding and Holness, particularly the “Dudus extradition affair”, rather than anything directly that the PNP actually did.

During the 2011-2016 Simpson Miller administration, the cracks in the party appeared to widen, with a number of contending factions emerging. Despite going into the 2016 elections with a very comfortable 42-21 majority, the party against the expectations of most pundits, as well as JLP supporters and leaders, contrived to narrowly lose that election without serving out its full term. The wounds were very obvious for all to see.

People contact lost

The PNP polled 465,000 votes in 2011 to win 42 seats but 30,000 votes less in 2016 to lose by one seat. The JLP polled 30,000 more votes in 2016 to snatch the government, the difference in vote count in 2016 being 3,000 in favour of the JLP.

One is inclined to say that the rest is history. The PNP has gone through a series of battles that have emphasised the extent to which it has lost its appeal among the electorate.

• By-election losses in SE St Mary and in East Portland, both seats that they held prior to the elections.

• A challenge for the presidency by Peter Bunting in 2019 in an attempt to unseat Dr Peter Phillips, the latter haunted by a series of low poll ratings. This exacerbated the bitter and divisive experiences.

• A disjointed and lack-lustre campaign in 2020, resulting in a trouncing that all but the party could see was coming or (maybe they did expect it privately).

• Another leadership battle between second-term MP Mark Golding and four-term MP Lisa Hanna following the expected resignation of Dr Phillips

• Another internal election (NEC) to replace the general Secretary and the chairman

• Other not so widely reported conflicts, all self-inflicted wounds, among others.

All of the above accurately sums up where the party is at the moment. Chart 1, showing voter support for parties 2011 to 2020, makes it patently obvious.

Between 2011, when it convincingly won with 42 seats, and 2020, when it won 13 seats to lose disastrously, the PNP polled 160,000 votes less. Yes, 160,000 less. On the other hand, the JLP, over the same period 2011 to 2020, polled just 1,000 more votes. Yet won 49 seats. The data speak volumes.

(JLP 2011) 405,000 VOTES = 21 SEATS, (JLP 2020) 406,000 VOTES = 49 SEATS

The difference? The PNP has progressively lost its appeal among the voting public and appears to be in a nose-dive without a functioning parachute.

Forty-three per cent of the persons surveyed in a post-020 election poll stated that the party was too divided and disconnected. The current leadership has said that it recognises that the immediate, indeed urgent, task is to mend fences and restore unity within the party. Only time will tell. In the meantime, the age-old maxim that “if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you must do is to stop digging” does not seem to have resonated with them. Recent utterances by several members suggest that this message of unity might be lost on some. Indeed, since the NEC elections last week, there has been another warning sounded of fresh conflicts ahead. Serious? This must be worrying for committed party supporters anxious to see the party regain its true relevance.

Divided parties generally don’t win elections.

- Don Anderson is executive chairman of Market Research Services Limited and senior adjunct lecturer in research methods at The University of the West Indies, Mona. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com