Robert Buddan, Contributor
CONGRATULATIONS TO the Jamaica Labour Party for its islandwide Local Government victory.
The JLP continues to show that it is a credible political organisation with an assured place in Jamaica's two-party system. It has recovered from its low point, especially that reached between 1995 and 1998. Next year will mark 60 years of elections in Jamaica under adult suffrage and the balance between the two parties is as close as ever.
Each election is a learning experience about the Jamaican political system and the balance of power between the parties that elections can produce. Importantly, each election result shows what the political (Westminster) system can accommodate. The Westminster system is weighted in favour of the representative, instead of the direct model of democracy; and similarly towards majoritarian rather than the consensual principle of decision-making. Yet, it is capable of accommodating its opposites.
The representative structure can accommodate more direct forms of participation such as direct elections of mayors and prime ministers; referenda; deliberative assemblies such as Parish Development Committees; and electronic democracy in the forms of voting and information sharing. The Westminster model can also accommodate power-sharing or consensual politics.
WESTMINSTER AND POWER-SHARING
Power-sharing is usually thought of in terms of executive power-sharing in central Government. But power-sharing is possible between the party that controls central Government and the party that controls Local Government. The phrase 'winner-takes-all' applies to the control of Central Government arising from general elections. But when Local Government elections are added, the winner does not necessarily take all.
When two party majorities control two different levels of Government, the Westminster system can accommodate a more consensual politics. When two parties inhabit different but mutually dependent sites of power, the French call it cohabitation. Cohabitation is possible in the Jamaican system because this condition applies. This becomes all the more pertinent since Local Government now has important autonomous power and is not merely an administrative poor cousin of Central Government.
For power-sharing to work, two further conditions are needed. First, the party leaders (who are not themselves members of Local Government) must be willing to practise a style of consensual politics; and of course, so too must the members of the Parish Councils. Second, Local Government must have some substance of autonomy and power to raise and spend revenue, to administer regulations and to take part in planning.
CONSENSUS AND STYLE
It is one thing for electors to return a balanced system of Central and Local Government. It takes a different effort to make consensus work. There are many political systems structured for consensus that do not produce this. Presidential, separation of powers models exist in Latin America but executive and legislature do not co-operate as well as one would expect. Americans themselves recognise that when two different parties control the American executive and the legislature, the product can be divided Government. What matters is a will to arrive at consensus.
After the close contest of 2002, both Mr. Patterson and Mr. Seaga moved closer towards a consensus. A series of summits were planned and some were held. The period between November 2002 and February 2003 was a rare and welcome period of co-operation. This then broke down when Mr. Seaga adopted a strategy to "oppose, oppose and oppose".
When the JLP won the recent local elections, Mr. Seaga's initial response appeared conciliatory. There was hope that he would enjoin Mr. Patterson in a renewal of leadership summits and restart the process of consensus. Alternatively, Mr. Seaga might be tempted to take the victory as his victory. But he must remember that the electorate was not voting for his leadership of Government, Central or Local. In fact, it might be argued that the JLP's victory was a victory for the younger members of the party who have accepted the PNP's Local Government reforms and believe in grassroots community mobilisation.
Mr. Seaga did not play the high-profile role he played in the general elections. There is a sense in which the JLP's win was a victory for the younger, newer and more reformist members rather than for the old guard central leadership.
It is important that this older leadership does not try to claim this victory as its own. It needs to build a more consensual style with the new forces in the party who seem to want to work with the reforms of the PNP. Mr. Seaga must remember that he opted not to lead the JLP in the 1998 Local Government elections but that the reformers in the party insisted that, even if it lost, it was important to have a local presence from which to build for the future. That decision has proven correct and provided the better showing in the 2002 and 2003 elections. After all this, it would be hypocritical for Mr. Seaga to now say that the Local Government elections give him a mandate to force new general elections.
CONSENSUS AND POWER
Central Government ministries and Local Government councils share power for some overlapping and mutually dependent functions. Clarendon has led the way with a decision to have a JLP Mayor and PNP Deputy Mayor. Horace Dalley and Mike Henry, who led the negotiations for this arrangement, remarked that this showed that both parties can achieve the highest levels of co-operation in the best interest of the country. But at the same time, the JLP is discussing ways to force the Government to call early elections. These are two opposite ways of using the present balance of power, using it for co-operation or for conflict.
It is important that central and local power is managed along consensual lines rather than on the lines of divided Government. Divided Government means that each side puts obstacles in the way of the other; that each side attempts to diminish the power of the other arm of Government; and that each side blames the other for things that go wrong.
Rather, it is important that critical institutions are given a leading role in building consensual strategies. The role of institutions such as the Urban Development Commission, the Kingston Restoration Company and the Community and Parish Development Committees must be clarified in this new configuration of power and for the members to agree on the spirit if not the rules of co-operation. It is even more important that citizens play their part in Local Government and national democracy to ensure that a third voice is present to see to it that the national good does not suffer because of partisanship and that this third voice can mediate as necessary.
LEARNING GOVERNANCE
Before pushing for new general elections, the JLP must use this opportunity to learn governance in the new era and gain experience in Local Government. It must prove that it is capable of managing national Government. Many of its members, and certainly its younger members, have not had control of Central Government for 14 years and Local Government for 17 years. Over this time, people have come to have new expectations of governance and new roles for elected and other players in the political process. The JLP might well be surprised at the new skills, style and abilities that politics demands today.
The PNP needs a new learning process as well. The party has already announced that it will go into the field to find out what has gone wrong. The PNP has a long tradition of openness to continuous review. It must look beyond the tactical issues of why it was not able to get more PNP voters out. The problem goes deeper than this. It goes to the very perception of party politics and the need for a more modern organisation that is run professionally. In fact, many political parties around the world are trying to understand the politics of this new era and the requirements of modern political organisations.
There might be three important opportunities for learning coming out of the Local Government elections: seeing how well we can use this period to develop more direct forms of democracy such as continued use of Parish Development Committees and more directly elected mayors; how responsibly we can engage in power-sharing and strengthen local democracy at the same time; and what the parties have to do to improve their own connectedness with the people in the communities. The Westminster system is being asked to accommodate itself to a very different kind of politics. Hopefully, its bad habits won't be used to undermine its good potential.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. E-mail: rbuddan@uwimona.edu.
