The clean sweep by the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) in the January 19 general election has continued a growing trend of recent clean-sweep elections in Commonwealth Caribbean countries. This raises issues around the ability of the electoral systems to produce divided outcomes. The collection of Commonwealth Caribbean countries that have produced clean sweep elections for one party is as follows:
Barbados–2018 and 2022
Grenada–1999, 2013 and 2018
Jamaica–1983
St Vincent and the Grenadines–1989
Trinidad and Tobago–1971
What was a predominantly no-vote campaign phenomenon in Trinidad and Tobago (1971) and Jamaica (1983), has begun to manifest itself in more aggressively contested elections in the Eastern Caribbean within the last 30-odd years.
This is a disturbing trend for politics in the region which has depended upon a two-party system based on a rotation of power between major parties that have been able to effect a swing in the preferences of the electorate from one side to another.
Barbados was the quintessential two-party state with swings of power between the BLP and the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) happening with some frequency since 1976. However, the absolute dominance of the BLP in the last two general elections has raised questions about the ability of the DLP to reorganise itself in the face of electoral outcomes that have demolished them.
Grenada has experienced this phenomenon on three occasions with Keith Mitchell and the New National Party (NNP). In small island states that base their constitutional structures on a transplanted modified version of the Westminster model that uses the premise of natural division between a Government and an Opposition, this is not healthy.
In the context of small-island states, this can effectively silence any opposing views in the parliamentary structures if there is no Leader of the Opposition. This phenomenon also manifested itself in sub-national elections in Tobago when the PNM won all of the seats in the 2013 THA election which led to the position of Minority Leader being declared vacant. The phenomenon almost happened again in the December 2021 THA election with the PNM winning one seat by three votes and the PDP winning the other 14 seats.
One of the electoral reforms that ought to be considered, in a general sense, to guard against these growing cases of clean sweeps should be the introduction of mixed systems of election that retain the first-past-the-post system but include a system of proportional representation for several seats to be filled in legislatures.
Such an approach would permit the votes of those who voted for losing parties to be guaranteed some representation if they lose first-past-the-post seats, but their votes can be counted proportionally to guarantee a minority presence in the legislature to permit effective functionality instead of having the post of Leader of the Opposition or Minority Leader being declared vacant.
Jamaica has protective provisions in this regard as section 81 of its constitution provides that the Governor-General will act on the advice of the Prime Minister if there is a vacancy in the office of Leader of the Opposition. This provision permitted Prime Minister Edward Seaga to advise on the appointment of eight opposition Senators in 1983.
Trinidad and Tobago had no such arrangement in its independence constitution so Governor-General Sir Solomon Hochoy had to declare the position of Leader of the Opposition vacant in 1971. The same situation was followed by President Richards in 2013 to declare the post of Minority Leader vacant when the PNM won all the seats in the THA election.
Grenada attempted to introduce a constitutional amendment in 2016 to permit the Governor-General to appoint someone as Leader of the Opposition in cases where no one was eligible to be appointed by virtue of election. The amendment was rejected by the electorate in the referendum that had to be held on it. In 2018, the NNP effected another clean sweep of all the seats following its 2013 clean sweep.
Trinidad has introduced proportional representation for aldermen in its local government corporations thereby reducing the number of clean sweeps except in cases where no party can get 25 per cent of the votes cast in a corporation to earn a single alderman out of the four available in each corporation.
The mixed system can reduce the futility of wasted votes in clean sweeps of first-past-the-post electoral outcomes.