LEFT: Edward Seaga claims that the JLP has majority support in most major urban areas. RIGHT: Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller hugs a little child on the campaign trail. - File photos

Byron Buckley, Associate Editor

Despite her pandering to the poor, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller's People's National Party (PNP) has its strongest electoral support among the middle class, according to a recent Gleaner-commissioned poll.

The survey, conducted by pollster Bill Johnson among 1,008 residents of Jamaica in early May, found that of the 34 per cent of persons who said they would vote for the PNP, 41 per cent were grouped in the lower middle class.

A further 30 per cent of persons in the upper middle class said they would vote for the PNP. The ruling party doubles the size of electoral support that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has among the lower middle class, while leading the Opposition party by two points in electoral support among the upper class. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent.

The coalescing of the middle class around the PNP is not surprising, based on the fact that the party was founded by intellectuals, with its founding president, Norman Manley, being a lawyer.

However, the PNP's current standing among the middle class represents a decrease compared to earlier times, according to former JLP Leader and Prime Minister, Edward Seaga.

Now a distinguished fellow at the University of the West Indies, Seaga said during the ideological turmoil of the 1970s, under the Michael Manley administration, significant sections of the middle class deserted the democratic socialist inclination of the PNP for the pro-free-market JLP.

"In the beginning, the JLP had no middle-class support. The party used to lose the northern St. Andrew seats," Seaga told The Sunday Gleaner. "The big shift occurred since the 1970s, when the JLP took away the (dominant) upper middle class support from the PNP."

Violent election campaign

Seaga wrenched power from Manley in 1980 after a violent election campaign. The period resulted in the so-called brain drain, when thousands of people from the country's professional and business classes migrated mainly to North America.

Writing in 1974 (Electoral Behavior ad Public Opinion in Jamaica), the late Professor Carl Stone posited that while the PNP leadership had no intention of alienating its "middle- and upper-class supports and allies, its populist style of mass mobilisation created confusion, uncertainty and anxieties after its election victory (in 1972)".

The end result for the JLP is the 28 per cent support the party enjoys from the upper middle class, and 21 per cent from the lower middle class, as captured in Johnson's recent poll findings.

However, the PNP, which holds 34 seats in the House of Represen tatives, can point to its electoral dominance in middle-class com munities spread across St. Catherine, as well as a concentration in other parishes such as St. Mary, Portland, Westmoreland and Manchester.

Geographical concentration

Although fewer in numbers than the lower classes - working and peasant - the middle class usually occupies a concentrated geogra-phical area, Seaga noted. Hence, it is able to influence the electoral complexion of constituencies.

For example, he pointed out that the entire northern section of the Corporate Area, occupied mainly by upper- and middle-class electors, is represented by JLP Members of Parliament.

The area includes the constituencies of St. Andrew North Central, St. Andrew North Eastern and St. Andrew North Western.

Regarding support from the upper classes, the JLP, with 39 per cent, has turned the tables on the PNP at 21 per cent - the converse of the lower-middle-class support for the parties.

Seaga argued that the upper class does not have much voting strength because it is small in size.

However, as noted by Stone, much of the influence of the ruling class "rests on a residual veto power which the business sector enjoys over party governments whose economic policies require close collaboration, cooperation and support from the dominant sectors in manufacturing, agri-culture and commerce."

Huge lower classes

The ding-dong battle is over the numerically huge lower classes.

Johnson's May poll has the parties almost tied (JLP 31 per cent to PNP 30 per cent) in support from the lower socioeconomic groupings.

It is expected that much of the parties' campaigning and election-eering will be targeted at electors in the lower classes.

Simpson Miller fancies herself as champion of the poor and, in fact, Johnson's poll findings have identified the PNP as being seen as caring more for the poor than the JLP. These views, no doubt, have been influenced by the slate of populist programmes, such as low-income housing, small-business finance, and health subsidies, announced by the Prime Minister.

But Seaga claimed that "the JLP has majority support in most major urban areas." He listed the Corporate Area, Spanish Town, Old Harbour, May Pen, Montego Bay, Ocho Rios, and Mandeville.

"The PNP is stronger in the wider Mandeville, but the JLP has strong support in the township," Seaga explained.

High voter apathy

The extent of the influence of the lower classes on policy formulation is in dispute.

Commenting on the fate of the lower classes after the advent of Manley's 'Power to the People' administration in 1972, Stone noted: "The mass of the population will face the same basic issues of material dispossession in subsequent and future elections, which will continue the electoral manipulation of the masses by party elites who cannot deliver massive changes in welfare levels."

Overall, voter apathy is high, hovering around 40 per cent, which means the political parties have a lot of work on their hands to convince the electorate of their policy and programmes.

This task will be made difficult in light of the fact that only 34 per cent of the public say they read the parties' political manifestos.

Voter apathy is highest among the upper classes which makes them less reliable as suppliers of votes.

Johnson found that 42 per cent of respondents in the upper-middle-class were either undecided about which party to vote for, refused to respond or said they would not vote. The corresponding figure in the upper class is 40 per cent.

At 38 per cent, the lower-middle-class has demonstrated the lowest, though significant, level of voter apathy. Is this where the electoral battle will be decided?