Peter Espeut OUR GREATEST fears about garrison constituencies have now been realised! It is almost certain that they have determined the result of last week's General Election! The PNP were victorious 34 to 26, but if four more constituencies had been won by the JLP, there would have been a dead heat and five would have meant a JLP victory. The PNP has eight garrisons and the JLP three (some are what CAFFE calls double "garrisons" with strong enclaves of both tribes); in the context of a landslide victory for one side or the other eleven garrisons might not make a difference to the overall outcome; but in a close contest such as this, with such a big swing to the JLP, if neither party had any garrison constituencies the result could have been quite different.
You want to know why the PNP and the JLP have invested so much in building up a system of Dons and garrison constituencies? For just such a situation as last week: to ensure electoral victory in a close election! And the strategy has worked well! Expect to see more garrisons emerge, and the present ones strengthened. They are valuable to the parties!
Garrisons are all about the distribution of scarce benefits and spoils by principally the Ministry of Housing. Under the JLP government of the 1960s, Back-o'-Wall was bulldozed to make way for the buildings which are now Tivoli Gardens. So far no garrison; but distribute the homes and apartments along party lines to JLP supporters alone, and have a master sociologist create an enclave spirit, complete with anti-crime enforcement, and now you have the garrison par excellence. Tivoli Gardens has symbolic value as the first garrison, and the most complete, with social infrastructure and services to create almost a separate island.
Taking a leaf out of Mr. Seaga's book, the PNP government of the 1970s beefed up its Ministry of Housing and created poor copies of Tivoli Gardens all around Kingston, without the cultural and economic foundation, but with all-PNP residents, and gangs and guns and political patronage. The JLP then created one or two more of their own in the 1980s.
Those politicians who consciously and deliberately played midwife to garrisons had a specific purpose in mind: to construct a politically one-sided enclave with a bedrock of votes which guarantees electoral victory in the constituency. Enough garrisons can win you state power in a close election, and that, it seems, is what has happened here. It is a blight on our democracy.
It seems that for the most part we have cleaned up the electoral process, but democracy still eludes us because of the way public funds and even some of our earnings have been used by both parties to contrive and sustain these politically one-sided communities. Many (if not most) of the residents of these communities are in gross arrears with their mortgages or rent to the government, and do not pay electricity or water bills; the rest of us pay, as our bills have been correspondingly increased.
In the minds of the politicians, last week's election has vindicated their decision to maintain and strengthen their garrisons over loud protests from local and international sources. I don't hear politicians of any stripe saying they want to dismantle any garrisons. If they had more garrisons they would be happy, as election victories would be easier to engineer. Mr. Seaga, who last week was defeated by the garrison system he initiated, said on public radio some time ago that he created an "enclave" in Tivoli Gardens for which he would make no apologies. Has he and the JLP learnt anything from last week?
Jimmy Carter was spot on when he identified garrison politics as the main obstacle to Jamaican democracy. I wish more international and multilateral voices would be raised on this matter. What are we going to do about it? The longer we leave them in place, the more "normal" they become. Judging by the lack of comment about the role they played in the election, garrisons are already normal to many political analysts. I fear that only external pressure will force our political parties kicking and screaming to dismantle their garrisons.
I am amazed at how so many election day incidents have gone unreported. Things happened in Clarendon where I worked as a CAFFE observer, which have not been reported in the media. The polling station at Cockpit was shot up on the morning of the election; gunmen invaded the polling cluster at the Catholic Church Hall in May Pen and demanded ballot papers (thankfully the brave presiding officer refused, and the political thugs left before the police came).
If these unreported incidents happened just in my small circle, I wonder what else happened around the country? About three weeks ago, a man was shot dead almost in front of my home in Palmer's Cross by two gunmen; the murder was not reported in the media. Why the media blackout? Is there a conspiracy to make the situation look better that it is?
My wife and I observed electoral proceedings in Rocky Point, Clarendon, and the correct process was followed to the letter by all the staff: supervisor, presiding officers, poll clerks, indoor and outdoor agents, police and soldiers. There was not even a hint if impropriety, except that no screens allowing private voting were delivered by the Electoral Office. We had to 'tun we han mek fashion'. Procedurally, elections were free and fair in Rocky Point; however, the polling station was located in the middle of a mud hole which could have been an obstacle for some. Would this have happened in a predominantly PNP area? The mud and the heavy showers did not deter the many voters who did turn out. The halt, the lame and the blind were lifted bodily through the mud and rain and inside the building, but everyone else was thoroughly drenched.
Personally, my wife and I suffered from the inefficiency of the Returning Officer for South-East Clarendon for whom eighteen months was not long enough to transfer our votes from our previous constituency in Kingston. At first, we were told that our home could not be found (blatantly untrue!); then we were told that every time they visited our home we were not there. Simply, I believe that we were the victims of tardiness and slackness in the Electoral Office. Could our experience have been unique?
Peter Espeut is a Sociologist and Executive Director of an Environment and Development NGO.
