Geof BrownWITH THE departure of Bruce Golding from the helm of the NDM, the political landscape is facing a shakeout. Looks like we are headed back to a two-horse race, the way Jamaican's tend to love it. How will the race turn out as the PNP and the JLP gear up for the big prize? Pollster Mark Wignall leaves no doubt about the finish.
In a recent prognosis, based on his opinion poll projections, he gives the PNP no chance for a comeback as government, come the next general elections. The tone of Mr. Wignall's predictions makes them sound pretty near infallible. And he is the kind of pollster no one should ignore. The Stone Polls, which as a faithful pupil of the master Mr. Wignall maintains, have a very impressive record of near pinpoint accuracy. And I for one, unlike a number of commentators who should know better, would tread carefully in rebutting or dismissing the Stone Polls out of hand. Yet I would warn Mr. Wignall to be careful about infallible-sounding predictions some two years away from general elections.
The reasoning is simple. A well-conducted poll (like Stone's) is like an excellent photo-shot of a changing scene. The picture one gets shows the state of things in the one shot at the time the picture is taken. Nothing, however, guarantees that the scene will remain the same a week, a month, or a year thereafter. Most recent proof of this is the fate of the NDM candidate Barbara Clarke in the recent North-East St. Ann by-election.
Two weeks before the election, the Wignall-Stone poll gave Ms. Clarke some 3000 votes. The prediction was confident and seemingly infallible. Yet Ms. Clarke brought in only some 700-odd votes on election day.
Now please note that the dramatic change in the poll prediction was no great surprise to Mr. Wignall. For his own later poll, published on election day, correctly showed that the earlier NDM support had evaporated.
In other words, the scene has changed after the previous picture was shot.
Similarly, only a matter of a few months ago, Mr. Wignall was declaring Opposition Leader Mr. Seaga unelectable. But a few weeks ago, his poll-sniffing found that the picture had changed to favour Mr. Seaga's possible, even perhaps certain, re-election. A week is a long time in politics. Sometimes even a day is a long time.
A classic example of infallible polling gone awry, was the prediction of the resounding defeat of US President Harry Truman up to the day before the 1948 Presidential election.
But Truman's feisty last-minute 'give-em-hell' campaign changed the picture dramatically in the dying hours before the vote.
When Norman Manley was facing Alexander Bustamante in the 1962 general elections, the appearance of a Russian ship in Kingston harbour had a telling effect in confirming the Communist bogey and eroding Manley's support.
The political picture changed in a day. More to the point, Mr. Seaga's 1983 snap election call was a shrewd move taking advantage of a majority Jamaican sentiment in favour of the US invasion of then Communist Grenada. Michael Manley's opposition to the invasion put him out of step with the majority. In short, no one, not even the best pollster with the greatest accuracy, can predict infallibly the unexpected shifts or unforeseen events which will change a political picture or climate.
And the fact that a poll is right almost all the time does not ensure its infallibility.
Human behaviour is predictable, all things being equal or ceteris paribus, as scientists say. But all things are not always equal. What I would love to see, however, is the coming of regular post-election exit polls to the Jamaican scene.
In a country as large as the USA, exit polls taken and broadcast in the East could affect voting patterns in the West. But in one as small as ours, exit polls would simply serve to inform us on the issues which mattered most to voters and provide a check against campaign claims.
Nevertheless, pre-election polls should neither put a political party to sleep in self-deluded bliss, nor put one to despair in defeatist surrender. In politics almost more than in any other endeavour, it's never over till its over. Infallible pollsters please note; politicians all remember.
Footnote: The leadership void in the NDM is starkly manifest as Bruce Golding steps aside. The potential front-runners who may have excited public support are shying away from even trying for the succession. Neither charisma nor grassroots appeal characterises the would-be others. Those two are indispensable leadership ingredients. Truly it appears that yet another third party is about to bite the dust a-la-Jamaican political culture. Sic transit gloria. Good try though, Bruce. Farewell till the resurrection.
Geof Brown is an HRD consultant who lectures part-time at the University of the West Indies. E-mail: browngeof@hotmail.com
