There was a truckload of newcomers to representational politics, at least 16 of whom won on the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) ticket, in the 2020 General Election. These are who we call the ‘coat-tail’ riders who swept into representation politics on the sheer charm and charisma of the Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

Many of them literally rode the coat tails of party leader Andrew Holness, to a seat in the House of Representatives much like how race car drivers ‘draft’ in the shadow of the drivers holding the pole position in a race.

Drafting, also known as slipstreaming, is an aerodynamic technique where a vehicle or object moves in close proximity to another, reducing drag and increasing speed. But that dynamic may be losing steam as these coat-tailer riders face a still challenge in General Election 2025.

At the end of the official, final and magisterial counts where challenges were brought, the JLP had won 49 seats and the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) just 14. It was the biggest win by the JLP since its 1980 trouncing of the PNP when it won 51 of the 60 seats in the Parliament.

The conventional wisdom is that several of these first timers who mostly warm the back benches of the Parliament, will not be returning after the upcoming General Election which is due by September. If that’s the case, and no one knows how many, the JLP may find that securing a third term is much more difficult than it may have been thinking, despite what political watchers describe as its impressive list of accomplishments.

A clear sign of how difficult securing a third term will be for the JLP is the fact that at least three of these first-timers have been replaced – Robert Chin in Manchester Southern, Morland Wilson in Westmoreland Western and Phillip Henriques in Clarendon North Western. Manchester Southern and Westmoreland Western are traditionally strong PNP seats, while Clarendon Northern tends to swing between the two parties.

The biggest problem for the JLP this time around may be Holness himself. Despite all the boast of record low unemployment, massive infrastructure upgrade, a near 50 per cent reduction in poverty, and a more than 40 per cent reduction in murders, the prime minister’s and the JLP’s popularity has waned. And, the party continues to be dogged by the perception of corruption, cronyism and arrogance.

The purchasing power of Jamaicans has been hit by inflation at a time when politicians gave themselves salary increases of more than 200 per cent. The prime minister’s favourability rating has also dropped in recent polls and he has been caught, and even overtaken by Opposition Leader and PNP President Mark Golding, in some polls. It is a fact that Holness has been investigated by the integrity Commission for illicit enrichment, and his statutory filings with the anticorruption body remain uncertified for more than three years.

He has taken the Commission to court to challenge its findings, while senior members of the government, including Justice Minister Delroy Chuck, have launched a broadside against the Commission. Critics of the prime minister point to what they describe as his, and his government’s autocratic approach to governance, with the Office of the Political Ombudsman subsumed into the Electoral Commission of Jamaica and steps being taken to remove the Auditor General from among the five commissioners of the Integrity Commission.

Also, the Supreme Court recently ruled that the government’s use of states of emergency between 2018 and 2023 were unconstitutional, the latest in a string of court rulings that have gone against the government.

For the upcoming election, Holness and the JLP will be facing a resurgent, more unified PNP. The Opposition continues to exude confidence following its strong showing in the February 2024 Local Government Elections where it won 30 more divisions than the JLP. The PNP also picked up crucial municipal corporations along the way, including St Mary and the prized Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation. It also won key divisions such as Christiana in the JLP’s stronghold of Manchester North East. The PNP also won all seven parish council divisions in Hanover despite the governing party holding the two parliamentary seats.

So confident is the PNP, it has already predicted clean sweeps in the parishes of St Mary, Manchester and St Elizabeth.

In response to his party’s seemingly waning support, Holness has resorted to accusing the PNP of  ‘badmindedness’ and being desperate for political power. Of note is that with inflation and rising prices driving up costs for the average Jamaican from basic food items to rent and mortgages, the JLP has backed away from its ‘prosperity’ campaign mantra from 2020, to its current ‘Choose Jamaica’ slogan. This should come as no surprise as the PNP has increasingly been accusing the JLP of ensuring prosperity only for its membership in government and the “connected few”.

Having been seen to have done well by Jamaicans with just a one-seat majority in 2016, Holness and the JLP were rewarded with 49 seats in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The PNP was also coming out of two bitter presidential elections, first in 2019 between Peter Bunting and then Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips, then in 2020 between Mark Golding, the current Opposition Leader, and outgoing Member of Parliament, Lisa Hanna. Those and other party issues are now largely behind the PNP, and opinion polls over the last 14 months have put the PNP ahead of the JLP by as much as nine percentage points, with Golding even moving ahead of Holness in favourability ratings.

While there was a massive swing towards the JLP in 2020, the JLP will have a more difficult task this year as struggling electors sour on the government. This will likely see the PNP base, which is usually larger than the JLP’s, anxious to go to the polls to give their party the opportunity to return to power.

With the prime minister bogged down by his personal problems despite putting up a brave game face, the reality is that the “coat tail riders” from 2020 have largely been left to fend for themselves this time around. Many are defending seats in traditional PNP strongholds such as Westmoreland, Manchester and St Elizabeth.

Following the September 3, 2020 polls, Jamaicans were in a rush to get to know the army of first-time Members of Parliament. From Kingston Central to the entire Westmoreland parish, there were new faces and unknown names. There were only two on the PNP benches in the House of Representatives – Lothan Cousins who won in Clarendon South Eastern, a usually reliable PNP seat, and Hugh Graham, who won in the PNP stronghold of St Catherine North West that was represented by the affable Robert Pickersgill for 31 years and seven general election victories between 1989 and 2016.  

On the JLP side there are:

-Donovan Williams, Kingston Central. He defeated the PNP’s Imani Duncan-Price in what many political watchers considered a major upset in a PNP stronghold. Following the recent dust-up in the PNP with the party replacing Lawrence Rowe with retired Senior Superintendent of Police Steve McGregor as its candidate, and word on the ground that Williams is not necessarily well-liked, the PNP expects to put Central Kingston back in its win column. However, there are serious matters involving the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation that are currently being probed by MOCA that may yet determine the outcome of this seat.

See below the full list of first-time JLP MPs who could be facing a difficult reelection: 

·      Donovan Williams, Kingston Central

·      Rhoda Crawford, Manchester Central

·      Homer Davis, St James Southern

·      Tova Hamilton, Trelawny Northern

·      Tameka Davis, Hanover Western

·      George Wright, Westmoreland Central

·      Daniel Lawrence, Westmoreland Eastern

·      Dwight Sibblies, Clarendon Northern

·      Robert Miller, St Catherine South Eastern

·      Dr Michelle Charles, St Thomas Eastern