Last Monday, Caribbean democracy was once again at work with general elections having been held in St Lucia and in Guyana. In the case of St Lucia there was a peaceful transition of power from the United Workers Party (UWP) administration of former prime minister Stephenson King to the Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) led by Dr Kenny Anthony. Indeed, Dr Anthony is now returning to power after having served as Prime Minister between 1997 and 2006.
In the case of Guyana, the electoral authorities adopted a more cautious approach to the release of official results given their mix of a first past-the-post method for the presidency and proportional representation for the National Assembly. The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) decided not to announce results on the basis of repeating the statement of poll that was telephoned into GECOM headquarters from outlying areas, but rather chose to wait until the hard copy of the Statement of the Poll was in their possession. This caused a considerable delay and led to the chairman of the OAS Observer Mission, Prof Gordon Shirley, having to issue a statement calling on voters to be patient while the electoral authorities carried out their tasks. Given Guyana's past experiences with election violence because of administrative error (as happened in 1997) it was not unreasonable for GECOM to adopt this approach.
With the People's National Congress (PNC) (the party of Forbes Burnham) having been dissolved back in July, and a new coalition having been created called the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) led by Brigadier David Granger (the presidential candidate) and Dr Rupert Roopnarine (the prime ministerial candidate), a new option was offered to Guyanese voters that sought to address the issue of race and division in Guyanese society. At the time of writing the People's Progressive Party/Civic was in the lead to capture the presidency because of the first past-the-post method for that office, but it appeared that no party was going to control the majority in the National Assembly because of the proportional representation method for the allocation of seats which is more complex given Guyana's mix of regional allocation of seats and its National Top Up list.
With both elections having been completed, one can see that St Lucia has moved a long way towards establishing itself as a functioning democracy as it has now encountered its fifth change of government since attaining its independence in 1979, when it terminated its association with Great Britain. On the other hand, Guyana has only had one change of government since its independence in 1966. That change took place in 1992. There has not been another change of political party controlling the government since then. According to the political scientist, Samuel Huntington, a country may be deemed to have become a functioning democracy when it satisfies what he has termed "the two-turnover rule".
Guyana could experience a hung parliament (depending upon the final results that are released after this column was written), but that will not impact the appointment of the President which is done by the first past-the-post system and Guyana operates a presidential system. St Lucia operates a parliamentary system and so it is easier to measure the two-turnover rule. The measurement of the two-turnover rule in the case of Guyana would relate to the presidency as opposed to the legislature.
However, if the two-turnover rule was designed to measure the movement of power away from one individual to another, then one can say that Guyana has made an important step towards becoming a functioning democracy after it introduced term limits for the presidency in 2001 that came into effect this year. The effect of the first-ever application of term limits was such that President Bharrat Jagdeo was deemed ineligible to stand for election again as President. In St Lucia, the return of Dr Kenny Anthony as Prime Minister was not inhibited by any term limit rule as it is more difficult to implement term limits in a parliamentary system than it is in a presidential one. Indeed, in the case of St Lucia the difficulties associated with the measurement of a term can be noted.
There were general elections in 1979 (Allan Louisy appointed Prime Minister), 1982 (Sir John Compton appointed Prime Minister), 1987 (twice on April 6 and April 30–Sir John Compton re-appointed Prime Minister twice), 1992 (Sir John Compton re-appointed Prime Minister), 1997 (election called by Dr Vaughan Lewis who succeeded Sir John Compton in 1996 as Prime Minister and Dr Kenny Anthony appointed Prime Minister after the election), 2001 (Dr Kenny Anthony re-appointed Prime Minister), 2006 (Sir John Compton appointed Prime Minister) and 2011 (election called by Stephenson King who succeeded Sir John Compton in 2007 as Prime Minister and Dr Kenny Anthony appointed Prime Minister after the election).
Guyana is better poised to measure terms of office with its presidential system as opposed to St Lucia, which like all other Commonwealth Caribbean parliamentary systems does not have a term limit rule which can permit former prime ministers to return to power.