Third Term - JLP to form government again

A third term in office for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which supporters say has been loading for sometime, came to fruition yesterday as the Dr Andrew Holness-led party registered a spectacular victory in the island's 19th general election.

The JLP captured 34 of the 63 parliamentary seats and condemned the People's National Party (PNP) to its longest stay in opposition. The PNP won 29 seats.

A total of 815,404 or 39.24 per cent of the 2,077,800 registered voters cast ballots.

Based on preliminary results, the JLP secured the popular vote with a total of 413,502, surpassing the number of ballots cast for the PNP by 10,311 votes.

JLP leader Andrew Holness said the victory was hard earned.

"This was not victory by default," he said. "Make no mistake about it. This was not an easy victory. This was a fight," he said.

The win means that the JLP has now won four of the last five general elections and its 10th since Universal Adult Suffrage in 1944. The PNP has nine general elections wins, its last coming in 2011.

On its way to victory, the JLP silenced doubters in key constituencies that many pundits predicted would have gone down to the wire. In St Elizabeth South West, for example, JLP rising star Floyd Green easily disposed of Miranda Wellington.

Rhoda Moy Crawford won Manchester Central for the JLP, polling 9,098 votes to the PNP's Donovan Mitchell's 8,916 to win by 182. Robert Montague, the JLP chairman won St Mary West over the PNP's Omar Woodbine by 943 votes.

The win puts Holness on course to equal P.J. Patterson's 14-year tenure as the longest-serving prime minister in modern Jamaica.

Meanwhile, the PNP, which has led in RJRGLEANER-commissioned Don Anderson polls for the past year, flipped 15 JLP seats, while holding on to the 14 it won in 2020. However, it was not enough to lead them to victory.

Among the big wins for the PNP was Isat Buchanan in Portland East over Ann-Marie Vaz, Dr Alfred Dawes over Robert Miller in St Catherine South East, and Nekeisha Burchell (by 207 votes) over Homer Davis in St James South.

Based on preliminary results, two of the 29 seats won by the PNP were by a margin of fewer than 15 votes. Christopher Brown beat Norman Dunn by 11 votes in St Mary South East and Steve McGregor won Kingston Central by 12 votes over Donavan Williams.

Peter Bunting, Dr Dayton Campbell, Ian Hayles, Richard Azan and Dwayne Vaz, who lost their seats in 2020, were re-elected. However, Dr Wykeham McNeill was a big loser in Trelawny South. Joan Gordon-Webley lost her sixth straight election, falling to Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn by 1,179 votes in St Andrew West Rural.

PNP president Mark Golding, in conceeding defeat, said "I'm very disappointed in the outcome".

"I think it is my duty as a believer in democracy to acknowledge and concede the result and to congratulate our opponents Jamaica Labour Party for their victory tonight. Jamaica's democracy is important and we must cherish it," he said.

"Sometimes it brings bitter disappointments. Sometimes those disappointments are laced with a tinge of a sense that not all is fair and just, but it is very, very important that we put democracy ahead of all of those feelings. And I accept the result of these elections and although obviously I'm very disappointed in the outcome," he said.