Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth — The betting always was that the winner in St Elizabeth would take the February 25 National Parliamentary Election. So it proved.

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) took a 3-1 majority in this southern parish, overturning exactly the advantage taken by the People’s National Party (PNP) when the latter won a two-third national seat majority in December 2011.

The JLP’s triumph in St Elizabeth replicated their seat margin in 2007 when the party also won a close national majority. Back in 2007, the JLP won the national poll by four seats as against just one in last month’s poll.

As expected, the JLP’s Floyd Green easily won St Elizabeth South Western — among the classic swing seats of Jamaican politics — dispatching the incumbent Hugh Buchanan on February 25. The preliminary count (final count unavailable at press time) showed Green with more than 9,901 votes to Buchanan’s 7,813 with a voter turnout of over 58 per cent.

The PNP’s loss of St Elizabeth South Eastern came as a shock to that party, showing the extent of the swing towards the JLP and perhaps most critically, the effect of the failure to complete the Essex Valley Water Scheme. That scheme, first launched in 2001, is expected to bring piped water to thousands in St Elizabeth South Eastern (SE) including Junction, this year.

The final count in that constituency showed the JLP’s Frank Witter gaining 9,223 votes, just 205 more than the PNP’s Richard Parchment at 9,018 votes. As usual the voter turnout in St Elizabeth SE of 61 per cent was much higher than the national average, which came out at an unprecedentedly low 47.7 per cent (preliminary). Four years ago voter turnout in St Elizabeth SE was 68.77 per cent.

Veteran JC Hutchinson brought home the third JLP victory. Hutchinson, now in his fifth successive term as member of parliament for St Elizabeth North Western, fought off the challenge of former West Indies cricketer Daren Powell, securing 5,689 votes in the preliminary count. Powell managed 4,823 votes.

In St Elizabeth North Eastern (NE), closely watched by analysts because of the bitter divisions in the PNP camp during the lead-up to February 25, the PNP’s Evon Redman won with relative comfort, but by a far smaller margin than the party is accustomed. Redman polled 7,733 votes (final count) to the JLP’s Dr Saphire Longmore’s 6,209. Longmore, a narrow loser for the JLP in St Andrew back in 2011 had started battling for the St Elizabeth NE seat less than a month before the election.

An intriguing factor in St Elizabeth North Eastern was the role of independent candidates. Delroy Slowley — who attracted the bulk of disgruntled PNP supporters offended by the dropping of their champion, former MP Raymond Pryce — captured 696 votes. Another Independent, Joseph Patterson, took 82 votes. Local observers suggest that the Independents were critical in Redman becoming the first winning candidate for the PNP in St Elizabeth NE since 1967 to take the seat by less than 2,000 votes.

Winners and losers in the two southern St Elizabeth seats said basic organisation, youth vote, the national swing and flawed campaign strategies by the PNP contributed to the results.

“I targeted the youth vote and I was able to bring them out,” said a triumphant Witter. “We out-organised the PNP in South East St Elizabeth,” he said.

Parchment agreed that he was let down by organisation “on the day”. But he also pointed to other factors such as the failure by the PNP Government to complete the Essex Valley Water project, which he believed cost him hundreds of votes, as many Comrades stayed away from the polls in the PNP’s stronghold, Myersville. Crucially, said Parchment, the PNP strategists erred by “trying to win 63 seats when they should have been concentrating on winning the marginal seats”. Parchment also lashed the failure by his party to debate the issues on television — a decision which, he said, lost favour with media, civil society and “forward thinking” Jamaicans; and too much time spent on probing JLP leader Andrew Holness’s house.

Green said his emphasis on “representation” rather than JLP and PNP politics helped him greatly. “The people accepted that they deserve better representation and that they should elect someone who will stand up for them,” he said. He claimed strong organisational work paid off in a big way.

Pointing to a range of infrastructural achievements, Buchanan rejected talk that he was hurt by poor representation even while conceding damage done by a split in the constituency base, accentuated by an internal challenge to his candidacy last year. Like Parchment, Buchanan — son of the late, legendary Danny Buchanan — felt his party fell down badly by opting out of the televised debate. Also, he said there was not enough attention by PNP strategists to promoting the “solid achievements” of their MPs. All that said, Buchanan noted the national swing against the PNP was crucial. No party in power in post-Independent Jamaica has ever lost St Elizabeth SW.

— Garfield Myers