Gordon Robinson | Thirty-nine per cent?

Cawn’t sey mi neva dida warn yu!

From as far back as April 13 ( Pick a Winner Wouldja Please?) I concluded after a constituency by constituency preview of the upcoming election:

“St Elizabeth South-Western is the quintessential Bell Weather…. it takes cash to care so I’m expecting Floyd to leverage his Agriculture Ministry’s “achievements”; bring home the Bell Weather; and confirm JLP’s, at worst, 32-31win (33-30 if Portmore is a Parish; 34-29 if Chuck/Samuda’s successor both win).”

Those loud screams you hear in the distance come from a nail being repeatedly abused by suffering hits on its head.

Four months later, on Marcus Garvey’s birthday, after the Election date was finally announced, I gave PNP the benefit of the doubt in the two constituencies still undecided by me:

“So, despite a likely nail-biting finish and after considering all the factors (including the lingering effects of Rise United’s ill-advised attack on PNP that fragmented the party and saw too many stalwarts leaving or switching allegiance), I stick with my prediction of a 32-31 JLP win and a very intriguing next Parliament.”

As it turns out, I was too kind to PNP. So sue me! My outcome, namely a JLP win with 32-34 seats was far more accurate than our professional “pollsters”.

And, speaking of our pollsters…..

On April 13 I begged our pollsters to change their inappropriately designed Polls from useless predictors of popular vote outcomes to constituency by constituency assessments. Why? Elementary my dear Watson, Jamaica operates under an irrational parliamentary election system whereby who wins the most seats wins regardless of how much of the overall popular vote they muster.

So, on election night, we were forced to endure three minutes of televised discomfort from the Panderson Polls Don as he tried valiantly to rub egg off his face by pretending his last pre-election poll, conducted days before the real Poll, predicted a close election. Nope. That Poll reported PNP was 3.1 per cent ahead in the popular vote which the Don repeatedly told us before the election was “outside the margin of error.” In reality, PNP lost the popular vote by 1.2 per cent.

So Panderson Polls got the winner WRONG and the popular vote prediction WRONG by 4.3 per cent which, according to the Don, is well outside his “margin of error” crutch.

At least Blue Dolt had consistently forecast a JLP win although their last effort at a correct score on the popular vote (JLP by 13 per cent) was ludicrous. A five per cent popular vote win is a political landslide. NOBODY wins parliamentary elections by double digits.

So, one more picture, hold it: Polls, Schmolls!

On September 2 ( Finally! It’s Election Eve!!) I warned you:

“If PNP believes this (or any) Jamaican election is likely to be decided on corruption it’s sadly mistaken. Regrettably, too many voters view ALL politicians as corrupt. Their only interest in that issue is whether, after the inescapable political t’iefing is done, they and their families have also benefitted and, almost as an aside, Jamaica has benefitted. Voters’ priority issues are personal (not macro-) economics; crime; infrastructure (roads; water); education; and health.”

PNP continued to hammer wild speculative allegations of corruption based on inconclusive (at worst) Integrity Commission Reports on lengthy, expensive, intense “investigations” of PM’s statutory declarations. This led to PM, in his victory speech, to paraphrase Isaiah 54:16 by reminding Jamaica that “no weapon formed against me shall prosper”.

In the end, the majority of Jamaican voters rejected those scurrilous attacks.

But the winner of this election was, as PM said, Jamaica. But Jamaica didn’t win the way PM wanted us to believe Jamaica won. Jamaica didn’t win by electing JLP. Jamaica won by a massive landslide AGAINST both JLP and PNP. Only 39 per cent of the electorate voted on Wednesday which is only about one per cent above the corresponding number for 2020’s Covid election.

SIXTY-ONE PERCENT of the electorate refused to participate in this latest electoral sham. Mealy-mouthed platitudes by two young politicians on TVJ’s election night panel regarding the need to “engage” the population are now beyond tiresome. After Wednesday’s abysmal voter turnout we MUST acknowledge Jamaica needs fundamental governance change. This system of winner-take-all combined with a ban on voting separately for government and MP is broken. Fix it!

Stop this “engaging the population” idiocy. Political parties have tried to “engage the population” with mass rallies; glossy adverts; and social media rants for too long. The people will enjoy the entertainment and the free T-shirts but reject your concept of “democracy”. If you want us to vote give us something for which to vote.

Stop forcing us to vote for a symbol instead of a constituency representative. Give us the right to a separate vote for PM and MP. I spoke to a long time Labourite on Wednesday who voted in Julian Robinson’s constituency. He admitted to me that for the first time he voted for Julian because he was tired of wasting a vote on somebody who couldn’t win.

This is voter abuse. Why couldn’t that Labourite vote directly for Andrew Holness as PM and have his vote counted with island wide votes to decide who’ll lead Government? WHY???”

And time come to stop abusing over 60 per cent of the electorate who have turned their backs on the sham vote offered by political pleaders who only want voters to give them what pleaders want. All pleaders want is control of the public purse for five years in an unfit-for-purpose system force fed to us by colonial masters and kept by wannabe plantation owners to our detriment.

So, after all this, whither PNP?

There’s a lot of namby-pamby nonsense being bruited about regarding how well Mark Golding did to bring the PNP from 14 seats to 28 – more than doubling its parliamentary presence.

Rubbish!

Let’s stop fooling ourselves. For more than six years, Rise United, led by Peter Bunting and Mark Golding, proceeded (whether deliberately or innocently) to undermine PNP’s parliamentary presence AND decimate the Party. In 2016, PNP won 31 seats. Rise United’s strategy, which began in Portland East where PNP lost a by-election thus giving Rise United an excuse for a narcissistic leadership challenge to Peter Phillips, destroyed the soul of the PNP.

Consequently, half the party stayed home in 2020. PNP won only 14 seats. All Rise United members outside a garrison lost their seats. In 2025, PNP won 29 (now 28 after the Central Kingston final count) seats. So, over six years or more, Rise United, now led by Mark Golding, has brought PNP from 31 to 28 seats. Good job, right? Wrong!

In 2016, PNP polled 433,735 votes. In 2025, with a significantly increased number of voters on the list and a torrent of “diaspora voters”flying in to vote PNP, PNP polled 403,191 votes.

Need I say anything more?

But you know I will! Don’t misunderstand me. Mark Golding is a good man. But his political naiveté has sunk PNP’s ship deeper than the Titanic and now he’s trying to salvage it for parts. Here’s another uncomfortable truth that nobody else will say out loud.

On April 13 I tried to say this politely:

“During 1992-2006, I maintain PNP’s most effective political weapon was Edward Seaga whose ethnicity, race and origin of birth were viciously and unfairly manipulated by PNP activists. That sickening strategy resonated with voters….

Today tables are turned. PNP is led by a man of British heritage who remained a British Citizen until reluctantly renouncing it recently after unrelenting public pressure. JLP attack dogs are already pursuing that spiteful double standard by repeatedly assaulting his “Jamaicanness” and Jamaican loyalty with crass, jingoistic, racist rhetoric. We’ll see whether Jamaica’s political history repeats itself.”

It didn’t sink in. So let’s be blunt! Jamaica’s political history has repeated itself and, since we almost never learn from our history, it could easily continue repeating itself. Like it or not, in the year of our Lord, 2025, our 63rd year of Independence from England, as we are allegedly “on the road to Republic” Jamaica won’t vote for a white son of an Englishman who took forever to relinquish his British citizenship and only did it after conducting a political poll to see how remaining a British citizen would play electorally.

It’s. Just. Too. Much!

If PNP doesn’t want to remain in Opposition indefinitely it’ll emulate PM’s stated intention for JLP: renew, refresh, wheel and come again.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com