By Cedric Wilson, Guest Columnist
Cedric Wilson
NOTHING IN politics is more fascinating and for some more disturbing, than the unexpected. Dr. Karl Blythe who walked off into the political wilderness two years ago, after the Operation Pride controversy, created that sort of effect a couple of weeks ago.He emerged from the People's National Party (PNP) vice-president election with more votes than any of the other candidates. Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller and Dr. Peter Phillips who have been regarded as the front runners for the job as party president had to settle with 62 and 204 less votes respectively.
But Dr. Blythe has much more than the normal cupful of self-confidence. Indeed, he speaks of his candidacy for the top party job like a man who saw the burning bush while he sojourned in the wilderness. Naturally, the data from the election are being dissected, interpreted and reinterpreted to gauge the outcome of the presidency race in September. A word of advice interpretation should not be based on the politics of statistics but rather on the statistics of the politics.
Statistics are useful in the sense that you can make amazingly accurate predictions about the outcome of an event, like an election or the sale of a good, by studying a sample or small group of people in the population.
However, to get accurate results the sample should not be biased. In other words, it should more or less be representative of the population. In the run up to the 1980 General Election, Prime Minister Michael Manley stood before a sea of cheering supporters at a campaign meeting in Sam Sharpe square and thundered from the platform, "One hundred and twenty thousand strong can't be wrong". Yet, he suffered a crushing defeat at the poll. His mistake was that he interpreted the crowd as an indication of how Jamaicans on a whole would vote; completely overlooking the fact that it was a mass of PNP supporters transported in from every corner of the island. So really, he had ignored the structure of his sample and his outlook was informed by the politics of statistics. This eventuality can clearly be ruled out since the same delegates who selected the vice-presidents will be the ones choosing the new president in September and as such the 'sample is the population'.
There is also the matter of the timing when dealing with statistics. For most of 2002, the PNP lagged behind the Opposition Labour party in the polls. They even lost the local government election prior to the general elections, yet the party scored victory at the polls. It therefore means that it is not just important to have statistics that are unbiased but getting numbers that are relevant is crucial. Metaphorically, in takes only a few days for heaven and earth to pass away in a dynamic political environment. It therefore follows that merely to rely on statistics that support your point of view even after some time has elapsed is nothing more than playing the risky game of the politics of statistics.
CONTEXT IS CRITICAL
Yet, that is not all. The context of the statistics is crucial. The vice-presidential race was one in which four candidates were to be chosen from five. The first four past the post were declared vice presidents. According to Marquis de Condorcet, an eighteenth century political theorist, democracy is problematic in a situation where the number of outcomes is greater than two. This means that a race based on the 'first four past the post' is completely different from a 'winner takes all race'. Therefore, while Dr. Blythe finished ahead of the pack in this particular event, it does not necessarily follow that he would have won had a two candidate race been held with Mrs. Simpson Miller. Neither can it be safely deduced that his victory would have been certain had he competed solely with Dr. Phillips. In the absence of ballots which allowed for the pair-wise ranking of candidates in the vice-presidency race, it is dangerous to predict the September results. The correct interpretation of the statistics from the vice-presidential elections is that in the group of four, Dr. Blythe is deemed by his peers as most essential but not necessarily the foremost player. The delegates are really saying, of all the other candidates, Dr. Blythe
cannot be left out of the mix. It seems banal yet any other interpretation is unambiguously the politics of statistics.
REWRITTEN RULES
Although for most of the time under Prime Minister Patterson's leadership, the economy stagnated, he nonetheless achieved the feat of leading his party in three of four consecutive general election victories. In doing so, he has rewritten the rules. In the past two successive
victories, at most, was the established order; now, 'any number can play.' But why? Mr. Patterson does not possess the magnetic presence of Bustamante, the oratorical gift of Michael Manley nor the Olympian competitiveness of Seaga. Certainly, he has a darker hue and
humbler roots than all of them, yet he pulled off the inconceivable. Much of this feat has been attributed to the fratricidal proclivities and the recurring mutiny within the Opposition Labour party, but we would have got it wrong if we
overlook the fact Mr. Patterson is not the kind of man to engage in the politics of statistics. Crowds may deceive, numbers may be manipulated, and facts may be misrepresented, but in the end, statistics are impartial. Dr. Blythe, like Mr. Patterson has re-emerged from the wilderness, but does he understand the subtlety of politics and the neutrality of statistics like the maestro? Time, my friend... only time will tell.
Cedric Wilson is an economics
consultant who specialises in market regulation. Send your comments to: conoswil@hotmail.com.
