DYNAMICS OF THE POLITICAL PROCESS

Taken from Governance and Democracy in the Commonwealth Caribbean: An Introduction

Patrick Emmanuel

Page 100-102, 105-106.

There are three aspects of political process in the region which for the purposes of this study, bear high-lighting. There are operation of party systems; the state and fundamental freedoms; the types of generalised political conflict.

(A) The Party Systems

From the period of the introduction of adult suffrage, subsequently, each country has manifested its own pattern competition for and enjoyment of political office. The following Table (11) shows the sequence of majority parties, in successive general elections, from the first of these to the most recent.

The table shows that two parties have won in ten cases, three in two cases and four in one case. A total of thirty parties have therefore been successful, in thirteen countries.

There have been very few instances of coalition, caused by absence of an outright winner. But currently there is a coalition in Grenada.

Jamaica and Barbados are the only cases of regular alternation while in most other cases there is one-party dominance, or dominance passing from one party to another rather than in alternation.

Governments have generally been stable, whatever the mar of their seat majorities. Since independence, only two governments have collapsed due to intra-party splits, i.e. in Dominica and St. Lucia (Grenada’s PRG also, of course, collapsed, but it was not an elected government).

TABLE 11 COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN: SEQUENCE OF WINNING PARTIES

In other cases, defections from ruling parties have occurred but they have not been sufficient in numbers to bring about changes in Governments.

All of these parliamentary majorities, except in the case of Guyana from 1964, have derived from the FPP electoral system. The FPP system, far more often than not, is associated with the production of comfortable majorities, recent exceptions being the one seat majorities in Dominica (1990), St. Kitts-Nevis (1984 and 1989) and St. Lucia (twice in 1987). However, while a comfortable majority may be a desirable electoral outcome, the denial of representation for substantial opposition voting that the system has caused in the region, argues persuasively for the introduction of a corrective supplementary system of proportional representation.

Proportionality may apply to a proportion of a fixed number of seats, eg. one-half of 30; or to seats additional to a fixed number, eg. 30 seats by FPP plus an additional seat for each 5% or 10% of total vote received.

(B)  The State and Basic Freedoms

Each Constitution carries a list of fundamental rights and freedoms, along with provisions whereby these may be abridged, and the judicial process by which they can be defended. The Charters pronounce in favour of life, liberty, movement, property, thought, religion, expression, assembly, association and protection of the law, while proscribing slavery, inhuman treatment; unreasonable search, entry, arrest or detention; and any discrimination based on race, colour and other attributes. Three Constitutions recognize a right to work.

The fundamental rights sections are in fact the only parts of the Constitution that apply directly to the generality of the population, other than the franchise. All else is about parliaments, cabinets, heads of state, judiciaries and civil establishments.

The rights and freedoms are supposed to be the attributes which citizens require to energize the functioning of all the other sections of the Constitutions, like life-blood coursing through the system. Yet in practice it appears so much as if the institutional structures are shut off from the charters of rights, a world of flesh and blood shut off from a world of paper and ink.

 (C)  Political Conflict

While the record of peaceful politics in the Caribbean is generally commendable, there have been occasions of violence, sometimes of extraordinary proportions.

Violence aimed at overthrowing regimes has been used successfully in Grenada: to overthrow a GULP Government in 1979, an NJM Government, Oct. 12, 1983, and a short lived ‘Revolutionary Military Council’, Oct. 25, 1983. There was also a violent but unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Government of Trinidad and Tobago in 1990.

Prior to independence, the British colonial power dislodged governments in Guyana (1953) and Grenada (1962).

Violence has also been vigorously applied in inter-party conflict in Jamaica and inter-racial conflict in Guyana.

Overall there have been major socio-political conflicts in most countries, several of them marked by some use of force.

The principal foci of conflict may be summarised in the following way:

Classification of Major Issues, Past or Present

Antigua                                       -                                                                                      Political Corruption, Party Schism
Bahamas                                    -                                                                                      Political corruption, Secession

Barbados                                    -                                                                                     Race and Economic Power

Belize                                         -                                                                                     Threats to Territorial Integrity

Dominica                                    -                                                                                     Political Corruption, Treason, Party Schism

Grenada                                     -                                                                                     Human Rights Abuses, Coup d’Etat,

                                                                                                                                      Ideology, Party Schism

Guyana                                       -                                                                                     Race, Electoral Irregularities, Threats to

                                                                        Territorial Integrity, Currency Devaluation

Jamaica                                      -                                                                                     Inter-party Violence, Electoral Adminis­tration, 

                                                                        Ideology, Currency Devaluation                      

St. Kitts-Nevis                          -                      Secession
St. Lucia                                    -                                                                                    Party Schism
St. Vincent                                -                                                                                       Party Schism
Trinidad                                    -                                                                                        Race, Attempted Coup, Party Schism

This listing attempts to suggest the major political issues over time and is not comprehensive. Some issues are current while others were more evident in past years. The political process is constantly in a state of flux and an issue may suddenly emerge in a country where it had not previously featured significantly. Charges of political corruption and electoral irregularities are frequently made in all countries. Equally there are always issues of ideology, party schism, or race. But levels of intensity or persistence would vary from time to time and country to country.

By and large the extant constitutional structures have proved themselves resilient in the containment of conflict. But some issues might not have reached levels of system-threatening intensity if the political institutions were more responsive at earlier stages. Often channels of intra-institutional protest have been closed off and resort has been had to extra-institutional or even extra-constitutional expression.

The system requires that the publics are generally more active ­oriented, but the development of activist orientations needs to be encouraged by responsive institutional mechanisms.