Wes­ley Gib­bings

As Guyana pre­pares for gen­er­al elec­tions on Sep­tem­ber 1 and Ja­maica fol­lows on Sep­tem­ber 3, one com­mon thread runs through the po­lit­i­cal land­scapes of much of the Caribbean. It is the ques­tion of elec­toral longevi­ty: the stay­ing pow­er of po­lit­i­cal par­ties, their lead­ers, and the sys­tems that sus­tain them.

At­ten­tion may soon shift to St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, where a Feb­ru­ary 2026 dead­line now ap­pears ir­rel­e­vant, and there is the ear­ly prospect of an­oth­er test of one of the re­gion’s most re­mark­able ex­am­ples of po­lit­i­cal stay­ing pow­er.

Longevi­ty in Caribbean pol­i­tics is cer­tain­ly not a uni­form phe­nom­e­non though. Sys­tems vary - from Guyana’s and Suri­name’s pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion (PR) to more ubiq­ui­tous first-past-the-post con­tests. Yet, ex­am­ples abound of par­ties and lead­ers hold­ing on­to of­fice for long pe­ri­ods, even in fierce­ly com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ments.

Guyana’s PR, shared in prin­ci­ple on­ly with Suri­name, cre­ates a dis­tinc­tive elec­toral bat­tle­ground. The rul­ing Peo­ple’s Pro­gres­sive Par­ty (PPP), as led by 45-year-old Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali, is seek­ing a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive term this year. But this is hard­ly the coun­try’s first brush with long-term dom­i­nance.

The late Forbes Burn­ham held pow­er from 1964 to 1985, al­beit un­der chang­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­works, be­fore Desmond Hoyte car­ried the ba­ton un­til 1992. From then, the PPP stayed in of­fice for five con­sec­u­tive terms, in­clud­ing a chal­leng­ing stint as a mi­nor­i­ty gov­ern­ment be­tween 2011 and 2015.

The Sep­tem­ber con­test, with Aubrey Nor­ton’s A Part­ner­ship for Na­tion­al Uni­ty (AP­NU) as the main chal­lenger, will test whether the PPP can once again stretch its tenure. In de­vel­op­ments that took 2020 elec­tion re­sults to the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), AP­NU and its al­lies have had to ne­go­ti­ate un­sta­ble po­lit­i­cal ground.

Across the bor­der, Suri­name’s own ver­sion of PR has al­so pro­duced ex­tend­ed po­lit­i­cal lifes­pans. On May 25, a ra­zor-thin re­sult saw the Na­tion­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP) un­der Jen­nifer Geer­lings-Si­mons win 18 of 51 seats, edg­ing out Chan San­tokhi’s Pro­gres­sive Re­form Par­ty (VHP) with 17.

Geer­lings-Si­mons now heads a coali­tion gov­ern­ment. The VHP had it­self gov­erned through coali­tion arrange­ments sev­en times since 1958.

Be­lize of­fers an­oth­er les­son in po­lit­i­cal en­durance. The Unit­ed De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (UDP), un­der Dean Bar­row, gov­erned for three straight terms from 2008 to 2020 - a rare feat in Be­lizean pol­i­tics. Yet, on March 12, it lost a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive time to John Briceño’s Peo­ple’s Unit­ed Par­ty (PUP) amidst yet un­re­solved in­ter­nal tur­moil.

In T&T, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) once dom­i­nat­ed the po­lit­i­cal stage from 1956 to 1986 (six con­sec­u­tive wins) – with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress oc­cu­py­ing of­fice be­tween 1995 and 2001.

The PNM re­turned to ex­tend­ed pow­er from 2001 - the year of an 18-18 elec­toral tie - un­til the snap elec­tion loss of 2010. A re­peat mis­cal­cu­la­tion in April opened the door for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­turn to of­fice.

Mean­while, Ja­maica once had a built-in re­sis­tance to ex­tend­ed rule, with nei­ther ma­jor par­ty win­ning more than two con­sec­u­tive terms be­tween in­de­pen­dence in 1962 and 1989. That pat­tern was bro­ken when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Par­ty (PNP) won four straight terms be­tween 1989 and 2007.

Next month, Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness’ Ja­maica Labour Par­ty (JLP) will seek a third straight vic­to­ry. PNP leader Mark Gold­ing hopes to re­store the pat­tern of al­ter­nat­ing dom­i­nance.

In Saint Lu­cia, the late John Comp­ton served as na­tion­al leader dur­ing four sep­a­rate stints, in­clud­ing his role as Chief Min­is­ter in pre-in­de­pen­dence 1964, and be­tween 1982 and 1986, and again in 2006-2007 as prime min­is­ter.

Over in Do­mini­ca, Roo­sevelt Sker­ritt has been prime min­is­ter since 2004, when he was 33 years old!

If there is a Caribbean bench­mark for longevi­ty, though, it is Dr Ralph Gon­salves and his Uni­ty Labour Par­ty (ULP) in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Since 2001, the ULP has won five con­sec­u­tive elec­tions - a Cari­com record for an in­de­pen­dent coun­try (the PNM’s six-term reign com­menced in 1956). Gon­salves is now 79 and has led the ULP from the start.

The op­po­si­tion New De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP) un­der Dr God­win Fri­day hopes to over­turn what has seemed like sta­tis­ti­cal des­tiny.

From coali­tion re­silience in Suri­name to near one-par­ty dom­i­nance in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, from Ja­maica’s shift­ing thresh­olds to the PNM’s (and now the UNC’s) re­peat­ed re­turns and ex­its in T&T, the Caribbean po­lit­i­cal map shows that elec­toral longevi­ty is a sig­nif­i­cant fea­ture of our pol­i­tics.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) of­fers a small­er-scale ex­am­ple. The PNM ran the THA for 16 years be­tween 2001 and 2017, win­ning five elec­tions and ty­ing one be­fore los­ing ground to new­er forces. The main con­tenders re­turn to ac­tion soon.

There is much to sus­tain in­ter­est in re­gion­al po­lit­i­cal con­tests. The stay­ing pow­er of par­ties is among the more in­ter­est­ing fea­tures. It’s not every­thing, but this res­onates favourably with the no­tion of elec­tions as a key pil­lar of democ­ra­cy.