Tired of hearing about next year's election already?

How about one that's happening tomorrow?

Tomorrow Jamaicans will go to the polls to decide whether to keep the government of the People's National Party or turn over control to the Jamaica Labor Party.

If this all sounds a bit like this to you...

...it's probably useful to go back in time a bit, back to when the U.S.-allied Edward Seaga headed the "conservative" JLP and Michael Manley headed the PNP. Seaga was closely allied with Ronald Reagan in the 1980's, and Manley gave the U.S. fits for a time with his admiration of Fidel Castro, though he later on became less socialist in his political leanings. These two traded off heading up Jamaica for years until Manley died. After Manley's death, the PNP kept control with P.J. Patterson as Prime Minister, and now with Portia Simpson-Miller, who is up for re-election tomorrow against JLP head Bruce Golding.

Of course this is a ridiculous oversimplification of four decades of Jamaican history. But to listen to the radio spots for the two parties, it's difficult to tell which is the conservative party. The "conservative" JLP is promising free education and free health care, and the PNP is asking who's going to pay for it all. Check out these radio spots from both parties, recorded from radio while we were in Jamaica last month.

JLP:


PNP:


The other interesting aspect to this election is the role gender plays. The PNP is touting the benefits that Ms. Simpson-Miller's term has had for women, while the JLP is running some TV and radio ads that show the current Prime Minister as a shrieking harpy:

And taking a page from the 1988 U.S. election, the JLP is throwing the folly of "stay the course" back at the PNP:

At least as of mid-August, the JLP was running its ads in heavy rotation, and it seems to be working. Going into tomorrow's election, the JLP has a whopping nine-point lead:

According to the pollsters, 40 per cent of those surveyed said they would be voting for the JLP at the next elections, compared to 31 per cent who said the PNP. Those who were undecided or said they were not voting amounted to 29 per cent.

[snip]

Pointing out that the findings were based on a 71 per cent turnout, Wignall said a further look at the undecided indicates that five percentage points comprise likely voters with "lukewarm PNP characteristics".

"If these likely voters are sufficiently convinced by the PNP that that party is going to win, the PNP may be able to add 5 per cent to its tally of 31 per cent, making it a much closer fight.

"If, however, the turnout rises significantly higher than 71 per cent, the overall gain will be to the JLP's advantage and its lead should increase even further," he added.

Imagine that: a 71 percent turnout. When was the last time three out of four Americans turned out at the polls during a major election? In 2004, only 55.3 percent of the voting age population turned out at the polls. Jamaicans are far more engaged in the political process than are Americans, and it's not because Americans are fatigued of the media saturation coverage, because if you listen to Jamaican radio these days, there are political ads running during every commercial break. Given Jamaica's history, and the promises made by both parties, one would expect Jamaicans to be as cynical as Americans are about their electoral process -- and yet they're not.