Reality Check: Who really wants to win A COVID Election?

Wherever an election bell rings anywhere these days, everyone listens.

In the Caribbean, Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Keith Rowley called a snap poll for August 10, under COVID, which his ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) won by three seats — 22 to 19 – of the 41 at stake.

PM Andrew Holness, whose Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) also holds a slim three-seat majority (33 out of 63), also this week announced early elections for September 3 – but without COVID-19 — seeking re-election with a slim parliamentary majority that can easily be upset, enlarged or maintained.

Guyana governments have since 2000 survived on one-seat or razor-thin (less-than-one-percentage-point) majorities and St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves’ ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) seems to have written the book on how to survive one-seat parliamentary majorities between elections.

Unique historical anomalies come from time to time in the traditional two-horse Caribbean election races to see which party will be first past the post — like one party winning all the seats contested, as did the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in St Vincent and the Grenadines under Premier Ebenezer Joshua (in the 1960s), as twice did Grenada’s New National Party (NNP) under incumbent Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell and more recently the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) under Mia Mottley.

In each such case, the leader of the party that won all the seats has had a say (one way or another) in which of the winning MPs will take up the mantle of Leader of the Opposition.

But neither Mitchell nor Mottley came anywhere close to the solution adopted by Joshua, who appointed his elected wife, Ivy, to the top opposition parliamentary post, daily matters of state automatically thereafter becoming likely subjects of nightly pillow talk.

But winning all the seats is not on the cards for any of the elections under way now.

Instead, it’s how the governments and ruling parties handle COVID-19 that will come into play on Election Day.

Jamaica will be the first in CARICOM to dismantle COVID-19 emergency restrictions for elections, but COVID-19 will still be in the air.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is not among states being accused of not doing enough to fight COVID-19 and with or without emergency protocols voters will also consider how the government handled the pandemic.

Saint Lucia’s election is not constitutionally due until June 2021 and the island’s COVID-19 emergency, extended twice since April, is in place until the end of September 2020 – but with options for extension, as recently threatened by Prime Minister Allen Chastanet after a spike in gun-related homicides following the lifting of the night-time curfew in mid-July.

The Saint Lucian government and ruling party are caught in a Catch 22 situation in which each of the last three national elections (2006, 2011 and 2016) resulted in Regime Change, each new ruling party (on each occasion) also given the same 11-6 parliamentary majority.

COVID-19 has not yet been traced as a political factor in most polls around the world.

But history is replete with examples of unknown and unexpected factors influencing election results in ways never thought, far less expected.

Example: The terrorist bombing in Sri Lanka just over a year ago created a state of national fear and anxiety that resulted in voters electing as President an ex-army strongman credited with having used brutal means to end a 25-year civil war, who in turn this week appointed his brother to the position of Prime Minister (for his fourth time), returning the controversial Rajapaksa family to power with an overwhelming parliamentary majority.

Example: The recent unfortunate explosion that shook Beirut and wrecked any prospects for Lebanon emerging from its seemingly permanent existential governance crises took too many lives, hurt too many families and wrecked too many homes. But it also resulted in the immediate exit of the government, which had been a long-standing popular demand in a country locked in tribal political and military conflict, with an electoral mechanism that allocates seats to warring parties on religious grounds.

COVID-19 can be the first or last thing on the minds of Jamaicans when they trek to the polls on September 3.

Same with Saint Lucia, where, like in most other small CARICOM nations where there have been no COVID-19 deaths and elections are in the air, people are loudly discussing the pandemic in the media while ruling parties grapple with whether to call elections early or go the full furlong in the electoral horserace.

Every Saint Lucian government announcement of a new project or initiative these days is measured in partisan terms and along election lines, including an EC $1,500 ‘First come, First served’ COVID-19-related Family Relief Grant circulated online that resulted in thousands lining-up at designated spots after filling questionnaires.

Election Fever has taken-over on the daily talk shows and smart social media politics is now the order of every day.

Caribbean parties have not yet started saying loudly on election campaign trails what they will do about COVID-19 if elected.

But with the Corona Virus going nowhere and the number of positive cases worldwide now hovering around 20 million, deaths at about 275,000 and 28 percent of global fatalities right next door in Latin America, it’s just be a matter of time before the politics of COVID-19 enters Caribbean election campaigns — not because the parties like the idea, but because they simply can’t avoid it.

Some ask: Which Caribbean opposition party today (except in Guyana where oil dollars have started replacing the comparable cents and farthings earned from bauxite, rice and sugar exports) really and truly wants to win an election in the COVID-19 Age when economies are in an average 10% free-fall, government revenues have been cut by at least 50 percent and collection of income taxes is disappearing quickly as unemployment rises?

The writing is on the wall for Trinidad & Tobago and Jamaica.

PM Rowley’s first announcement after his PNM won re-election on Monday was that this was his last election; and PM Holness, with the Jamaica economy still under revenue lockdown, says he is calling an early poll to unite the parliamentary divide to fight COVID-19 — after elections.

But, COVID-19 or not, Saint Lucia’s PM Chastanet says his government will continue doing what all others in CARICOM (and worldwide) have decided against: opening-up the island to American tourists.

With over 13,500 hotel workers unemployed, the government wants to see visitors start to fill the overly tourism-dependent island’s many empty hotels.

But entry protocols continue to create migraine headaches for many, as citizens grow increasingly skeptical about welcoming American visitors when the USA is still the country with the most COVID-19 cases — and the least chances of travellers getting tests within the time frame required by local entry protocols.

Meanwhile, the growing frequency of Caribbean elections under COVID-19 is giving rise to questions about how best to conduct polling in voters’ best health interests.

But, not constrained by set voting dates, CARICOM leaders are not considering postponing elections or using postal voting.

Instead, they are rolling the election dice for the most convenient polling dates to benefit ruling parties while COVID-19 restrictions legally prevent and/or restrict opposition parties’ election campaigns.

However, given that no election is won until the last vote is counted and more Caribbean voters willing to ‘teach’ costly ‘lessons’ to politicians and parties at election time, no serious party can afford to approach any general election henceforth on the basis of pre-COVID-19 norms.

That’s just the new COVID-19 political norm today and for tomorrow, here, there and everywhere.