Experts Question – By Tahna Weston
Experts Question Regional Electoral
Regional experts are raising questions about electoral engagement in the Caribbean following a low voter turn-out during Barbados’ general election last week.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s Barbados Labour Party swept all 30 parliamentary seats, but 70 percent of eligible voters did not cast ballots, prompting questions as to whether such margins constitute a genuine mandate for governance.
Political observers point to multiple factors behind the unprecedented abstention rate, including the opposition’s campaign strategy and public perception about the election’s outcome before voting day.
Jamaican educator and Garvey scholar Geoffrey Philp, whose work includes analysis of Caribbean political leadership, cited academic Rupert Lewis in offering one explanation for the collapse in turnout.
“One of the reasons that he [Lewis] posited was that it seemed almost inevitable. And when things seem inevitable, voters tend not to turn out. So, voter apathy is something serious. I hope it is not linked to that almost curse of, you know, the more things change, the more they remain the same sort of mentality: that sort of mentality that also pervades much of our politics, which is nothing that I do is going to change anything,” Philp said.
Former diplomat Dr McChesney Emanuel, who followed the campaign closely and received firsthand accounts from sources on the ground in Barbados, placed significant responsibility for the low turnout on the opposition’s failure to mount a credible challenge.
“I don’t think they even conducted any internal polls. I don’t think they had any recognizable, respectable pollster or pollsters who would have done polling for them to understand exactly what are the issues.
“I don’t know that they had focus groups or they would run what we would consider to be a well-oiled and well-run traditional campaign. The feedback that I got was that they ran a very, very poorly-run campaign,” Emanuel said.
Dr Emanuel added that voters who perceive an outcome as already decided frequently choose not to participate.
“Many people, because this happens in the Caribbean and even in the United States and elsewhere, where they may feel that, ‘look, my vote is not going to count, and therefore I’m going to stay at home’. And I think that was part of the situation in Barbados,” he noted.
The complete shutout of the opposition has renewed debate about whether the first-past-the-post electoral system adequately represents the will of Caribbean electorates. Under the current system, the opposition received no parliamentary seats despite capturing a portion of the votes cast.
Questions are being raised as to whether proportional representation would better serve the region’s democracies, particularly in elections with such skewed participation levels.
Dr Emanuel acknowledged the structural concern while expressing confidence in how Mottley would exercise her sweeping mandate.
“It’s always good to have an opposition, because an opposition is supposed to keep the ruling government’s feet to the fire and to be able to inform the population and to help them to understand some of the decisions that are being made, and that is a disadvantage for Barbados.
“But I still have confidence that Mia Mottley will be able to show some level of, I would say, not using this as a way to rule with an iron fist or to do things because she has this mandate. I think she’s going to rule in the interest of the people of Barbados,” he said.
He further predicted that calls for electoral reform are unlikely to gain traction across the Caribbean, noting that both incumbent governments and strong opposition parties tend to favour whichever system best serves their electoral interests, making meaningful change a distant prospect for most of the region’s parliamentary democracies.
