By Rickey Singh From Jamaica Observer

MULTI-PARTY electoral democracy will be very much in focus within our Caribbean Community in the upcoming years with at least five governments set to face the electorate.

Among them, most likely, would be Jamaica’s two historical thoroughbreds — Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s incumbent People’s National Party (PNP) and Opposition Leader Andrew Holiness’s Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Dominica is already in the final phase for tomorrow’s general election amid forecasts of a return to State power by Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit’s incumbent Labour Party for a fourth consecutive term.

At the last general election, the DLP retained power with a landslide 18 seats to the Opposition United Workers Party’s mere three for the 21-member Parliament. But the UWP’s new, young and quite militant leader, former journalist Lennox Linton, is bravely predicting victory this time around.

Other parliamentary elections due in 2015 include those in St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago.

The snap poll in Guyana — about which President Donald Ramotar was expected to speak at a media conference yesterday (Saturday), would come against the background of the recent controversial prorogation of Parliament ahead of a planned no confidence motion against his People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government by the combined opposition coalition which holds a one-seat majority in the 65-member House of Assembly.

T&T scenario

Across in T&T, official campaigning should intensify after the Christmas season. Currently, Dr Keith Rowley, leader of the Opposition People’s National Movement (PNM), appears agitated over the findings of a recent independent voters’ survey, conducted for the Trinidad Express, that points to a ‘photo finish’ when voters trek to the polling stations, possibly by mid-2015.

Rowley, a seasoned politician and first-time leader of the PNM — a party that has been accustomed to recurring electoral victories under its founder-leader, the now late Dr Eric Williams — feels that the “photo finish” prediction is “only propaganda” to boost the morale of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s incumbent People’s Partnership Administration.

The dominant party of the People’s Partnership coalition is the United National Congress (UNC) of which the prime minister is its first woman leader. Indications are it is likely to develop a new leadership structure and strategies for the 2015 election. She lost no time in declaring that the results of the Express poll could well further energise her party’s campaign for the coming 2015 elections.

Here in Jamaica, where Portia Simpson Miller is also the first woman prime minister and leader of the PNP which — like the PNM — is also accustomed to holding state power, new elections could well be held before Christmas next year.

The last one, which resulted in the short-lived administration of then Prime Minister Andrew Holness, had occurred on December 29, 2011.

Some analysts feel that the by-election victory scored by the PNP just this past Monday against the JLP in the Central Westmoreland constituency could well further boost the PNP’s hope for a second term.

But Simpson Miller faces more complex governance problems than Persad-Bissessar.

St Kitts and St Vincent

Coming elections in the Eastern Caribbean will, for sure, include St Kitts and Nevis, where Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas is looking forward to securing a fifth consecutive term for the 15-member elected Parliament.

Elections are also expected in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

In the latter case, the incumbent Unity Labour Party of Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, which had retained state power with a one-seat majority in the 15-member House, is expecting to again return to Government, this time with a comfortable majority, a prospect certainly not shared by the Opposition New Democratic Party’s leader, Arnhim Eustace.

IMAGE: GONSALVES… expecting to be re-elected with a comfortable majority

• Rickey Singh is a Barbados-based noted Caribbean journalist.

For more on this story go to: www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Caricom-s-coming-five-election-battles_18064835