| Could there
be a coalition gov't? December
11, 1997
Kingston (NICA): The number of seats that are up for grabs in next week's general election is an even numbered 60. This has raised the possibility in the minds of some people, of the election ending in a dead heat two parties winning 30 seats each, three, 20 seats each, or a variety of other combinations and two of the three having to form a coalition government. But what is a coalition government? Simply defined, it is a temporary alliance of members of two or more political parties to form the governing party. As David Robertson observes in his Dictionary of Politics, "Coalition usually occur in modern Parliaments when no single political party can muster a majority of votes". So in the Jamaican scenario, if the National Democratic Movement and the Jamaica Labour Party could muster enough seats between them to form a majority, they may be able to agree on a common programme (as they did in the case of international observers) that do not require too many drastic compromises with their individual policies and go on to form a government, relegating the People's National Party to the opposition benches. The orthodox NDM supporter would say this could never happen. Others may say, with equal fervour, if not conviction, that as political philosophies go now, the PNP and the JLP are like Tweedledee and Tweedledum - neither easy to distinguish nor worth distinguishing from each other. And that the NDM, despite its distinguishing insistence on constitutional reform to accomplish separation of powers, is merely a twig off the "green" branch. On the other hand, it doesn't seem all that far-fetched that the NDM and the PNP could form a coalition to shut out the JLP and condemn it to opposition. But what about a JLP-PNP coalition? Not likely. Too many strong personalities. Too many mortal enemies. In some countries, coalitions are hardly known for stable governments, while in others, coalitions are almost like a party in itself. How stable? But, given the Jamaican culture, how stable would a coalition of whatever mix be? What would be its life expectancy? And how would power be distributed among them? Would Bruce Golding in a PNP-NDM coalition be made Minister of Finance? Or would the PNP want to make him Minister of Foreign Affairs, totting up zillion of air miles and the corresponding number of frequent flyer coupons to keep him safely out of the country until the next elections? What post would Mr. Golding be offered in a JLP-NDM coalition, when even among sensible, seemingly level headed people in the JLP, he is encouraged to be regarded as a "traitor"? And please, reader, no suggestion is being made that Mr. Golding is likely to be the only NDM winner come December 18. In the Jamaican experience, it is difficult to visualise the NDM being bedfellows with the JLP or with the PNP for any decent length of time. So the guess is that if, come next Thursday, the election results lead to a coalition government, in a matter of months, if not of weeks, there would be new elections in the hope that the second time around that the results would be so clear cut, there would be no need for a coalition government. Following are the results of the previous 12 elections Jamaica has had since its was granted universal adult suffrage in 1944: 1944 (32 constituencies) JLP 22 seats 1949 (32 constituencies) JLP 17 seats 1955 (32 constituencies) PNP 18 seats 1959 (45 constituencies) PNP 29 seats 1962 (45 constituencies) JLP 26 seats 1967 (43 constituencies) JLP 33 seats 1972 (53 constituencies) PNP 37 seats 1976 (60 constituencies) PNP 47 seats 1980 (60 Constituencies) JLP 51 seats 1983 (60 constituencies) PNP boycott no voting
1989 (60 constituencies) PNP 45 seats 1993 (60 constituencies) PNP 52 seats 1997 (60 constituencies) PNP ? |