Some observations about the 1951-84 General Elections

This is a follow-up to my column of last week where I provided some information covering the number of registered votes, numbers and percentage of votes cast, number of rejects and the different constituencies which grew from 8 in 1951 to 13 in 1984. The percentage of votes cast in 1951 was surprising. One would have thought that with the adult population being able to vote for the first time without meeting income and land qualifications, that the turn out would have been bigger. Even more surprising was that while 69.7 per cent of the registered population voted then, the numbers were even less in 1954, 1967 and 1979. In 1954 only 59 percent of registered votes voted. In that year, the Eight Army of Liberation had been dismantled, Joshua’s PPP won 3 seats and the others, including George Charles, ran as independents. They formed a loose coalition and Charles retained control, as little as there could have been at that time. In 1951 despite the excitement over the introduction of Adult Suffrage, voting was new to them, but the existence of a high illiteracy rate might have affected turn-out. Some persons were unable to mark the required X in the slot on the ballot they were given and rather than embarrass themselves opted not to vote. The parties had actually started teaching voters how to mark their X’s. I do not have figures for rejects in 1951 and 1954, but in 1957 there were 2,285 rejects amounting to 10.41 percent of the population that voted. By 1984 rejects amounted to a mere .70 percent of the votes cast. There would have been other issues apart from the marking of X’s but the major one in the early years had to do with marking the X in the appropriate ‘slot’. This is where the symbols became very important since it was easier to get voters to recognise the Bike or the Key, symbols of the Parties then in contention.

The largest percentage of votes cast during this period was 88.90 percent in 1984. This was the second election after Independence and there was a clamour for change. Below you will see the copy of a letter sent by residents of Kingstown to John Horne calling on him to stand as their representative at the upcoming election. The eventual acceptance of John Horne as a candidate and the appearance of a number of other young and seemingly attractive candidates eventually gave the edge to the NDP. Marcus Defreitas running in West St. George got the highest number of votes, 2,533, and the person who came closest Arthur Williams of the St. Vincent Labour Party, got 1,410. Obviously, one has to place the size of the population in that constituency into context. Leader of the NDP got 2,362 votes in the Grenadines but that represented 81.8 percent of votes cast. Marcus was next with 62.6 percent. John Horne and Edward (Eddie Griffith) polled 58.4 percent respectively in West and East Kingstown, but Kenneth Browne of the Labour Party secured 59.4% in Marriaqua.

Milton Cato seemed not to have been excited about the demands and vagaries that came with Independence. He received 55.2 percent of ballots cast as against Louis Jones’ 44.8 per cent and resigned not long after, his party having lost the election. Ebenezer Joshua who had been the dominant political figure in the 1950’s and 1960’s up to 1966 made his final appearance in 1979 when he lost to Offord Morris of the Labour Party. His wife Ivy Joshua, who had taken over North Windward from him in 1957 while he moved to what was then Central Windward, also left the political scene in 1979. The 1972 election was also an unusual one in that the Independent candidate James Mitchell, who had resigned from the Labour Party, won his seat against Sylvester Simmons of the PPP and Louis Ollivierre. Whether this was calculated or not, given the fact that the two contending parties had ended with a tie, he was able to bargain his way to becoming Premier (St. Vincent achieved ‘Statehood’ in 1969, the Leader becoming Premier rather than Chief Minister).

Apart from the established Parties, the PPP and Labour Party, the following other parties, all short lived, contested elections. In 1974 there was the West Indian National Party that included George Charles for South Central Windward, Theophilus Cupid for West St. George, Kenneth Williams- West Kingstown and Norton Best, South Windward. Also, in 1974 the Democratic Freedom Movement (DFM) ran Kenneth John in West Kingstown and Edward Griffith in East Kingstown. 1979 saw the emergence of the United Peoples Movement (UPM) that ran Mike Browne in East Kingstown, Kenneth John in West Kingstown, Malcolm Garraway in North Leeward, Parnel Campbell in Central Leeward, Tydel John in South Leeward, Caspar London in North Windward, Ralph Gonsalves in North Central Windward, Simeon Greene in South Central Windward, Robert Fitz-Patrick in South Windward, Carlyle Dougan in East St. George, Renwick Rose in West St. George, and Albert Maloney in Marriaqua.

Much had changed since the first election under Adult Suffrage which was in a sense, a preparation for the eventual achievement of Independence. The voting age which was 21 in 1951 had been reduced to 18 in 1972.

• Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian