Submitted by Caribbeansignal.com
Barbadians will be going to the polls in 2018 with one media outlet suggesting that elections will be called in May. Curious about past election results – for Barbados – I searched around and found the Caribbean Elections website. This site features a treasure trove of election related data for Barbados as well as several other Caribbean countries.
The table I created (see below) consists of high-level Barbados election data sourced from Caribbean Elections (C.E.) between 1951 and 2013. Non-Voter data was not provided by C.E., so I calculated it based on available data:
Read full text HERE @caribbeansignal.com
No reliable statistical patterns. Therefore there is a need for narratives based on the social ,political and economic anecdotes. Cultural contexts will play a huge part in determining the electorate’s behaviour in each election.
Perhaps electoral behaviour is the better term. This changes with context / political environment. And we are in a changing/changed one.
Hello Bernard,
Thanks for your comment. Did you get a chance to look at the full article on my blog? I noticed the following:
Since elections were first held, no party has ever had one term. Each party has had at least two consecutive terms.
I also noticed that the number of Registered Voters (R.V.) and Total Votes Cast (T.V.C) has increased over time. For example, the gap between R.V. in 1991 and T.V.C in 2013 is wider than between 1951 and 1961.
What are your thoughts?
Cheers,
Amit.
Is the argument about voter apathy a myth?
Somebody tell Grenville go off the radio!!
@ Amit at 9 :47AM
Your charts in the full document do not support your conclusion ,even allowing for the number of events. Please compare the ranges. I would say they have reverted to the mean of 62% turn out rate.
The difference if any is not significant statistically. The voter turnout in 1991 to 2013 had a range of 63.7% to 61 %. Between 1951 and 1961, a much shorter span ,it varied between 64.5 % and 61 .3 %.
Good attempt ,however, to come to grips with these phenomena. I have the same issues in finance and economics where we attempt to make humans behave like machines in the quest for scientific verifiability.
Keep up the good work.
David
Your people are on the air!
@ Enuff at 10:17 AM
Voter apathy is a myth. Many of which we live by. Myths supply satisficing answers, however temporary. Efficient Market Hypothesis in economics is a similar myth which proved ineffective in the recent Financial Market meltdown.
But wait, the PM has finally awoken from his slumber?
Before and after the 2013 election, we were told by the lying dlp that the economy is on a growth path despite all the evidence that the economy was in serious decline. We were hit with tax after tax after tax.
To date, not one of the short term or long term fiscal plans have worked and now at the 11.5th hour, he now has a plan to take to the House.
Businessmen and people who live on the south coast have been complaining for months about the sewage mess and not a word from him.
If it is true (as no one believes a word coming out of the mouths of dems) that they were asking for external help, could Fumble at least had addressed the nation and told them what he said yesterday.
Look, it is time for them to go……..we cannot take dem no more!
@Bernard
What is your sense of what the electoral behaviour will be next election? We accept this is anecdotal if you care to share.
I am listening to Grenville, and I am disappointed that as an engineer he appears uninformed about the detailed issues affecting the South Coast Plant. It is clear he has not done any research, just general comments. Regarding, consultative policy making both Lynette and Grenville are out to sea–Worthing Beach to be specific. Nuffin but rhetoric!!
I am here listening to Brasstacks. I like Lynette but she is such an educated idiot.
She is saying that the BLP should use the UWI to do the research and the buy in for their plans not only the private sector.
Is she for real? Consult the UWI?……..those jokers who are only drawing huge salries and sit on their fat asses basking in their big name positions?
Get real Lynette…….the so called academics at UWI are jokers and most are dlp lackies! How often have we been hearing in this crisis calls for the brilliant Michael Howard (now retired) to speak out………has she ever heard Justin Robinson say anything other than along DLP party line?
Enuff
Their sole purpose is to bash the BLP………Lynette better remember that Owen Arthur was the leader of the BLP and not MAM!
@ David at 11:35 AM
At this point in time the BLP will win. This is based on the level of dissatisfaction with the DLP administration’s performance. My opinion is based on heuristics yielded by an internal model using both statistical and anecdotal information. The undecided electorate in my opinion reacts to new information as it unfurls. Never underestimate human emotions in an election. Look out for the framing of “objective facts”to convey a particular narrative.
@Bernard
Fair comment!
Bernard Codrington January 25, 2018 at 11:52 AM #
At this point in time the BLP will win. This is based on the level of dissatisfaction with the DLP administration’s performance. (Quote)
Correlation is not causation. At this historical juncture we know the entire nation – including many DLP supporters – are fed up with the incompetence of this government; but it does not mean that they are prepared to vote for the BLP. It may be the lesser of two evils – or even staying at home. Remember Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? Who won?
Voter apathy is only mythical because Barbados is an intellectually dishonest society and brags about it.Like being proud of never deviating from being a British colony.This place is finished.
@Bernard
And they haven’t even release a manifesto as yet. Imagine the BLP can send Ryan Straughn, a first time candidate, to represent the party against Phillips and Eastmond–two party leaders–on Brasstacks and make minced meat of them.
@ Enuff at 1:58 PM
A politician is as bright as his party. The latter provides the environment in which he can shine.
@Bernard, particularly at lunch time your 11:52 AM was ‘too sweet’…😂
Heuristics, you say eh! Is that like coming from the gut…definitely the DLP causing indigestion.
And ” The undecided electorate… reacts to new information as it unfurls”. Is that so!
Sooooo….”… Look out for the framing of “objective facts”to convey a particular narrative”.
So true my brother….as EWB framed his platform narrative and Owen his so too will MAM.
My brother I give you an A for platitudious palaver….😂😁
Now, as a followwer of your commentary wisdom I ask boldly to cut out that frothing cream and REALLY expend your acuity on the upcoming elections:
What’s the likely BLP handicap for victory
Which DLP seats will be lost
How will third party noise cause issues in certain ridings
Is there any evidence that these third parties are a BLP forged gambit
What key issues do you see as vital for immediate action (sewerage aside) for a new govt…use that list you surely created in your stats and anecdotal heuristics and light up the discourse….wid propa palaver….. Junk the cliches, please!
@ Bernard Codrington January 25, 2018 at 10:56 AM #
“Voter apathy is a myth…”
What is not a myth, though, is the number of motivated voters who enthusiastically went to the voting booths but failed to make a “correct” selection.
The number of invalid (spoilt) votes is a running testimony to the level of voter incompetence or blatant illiteracy given a lie to that other myth about Bajans being well educated and generally intelligent people.
It’s a good thing there is generally one name to choose from either TweedleBee or TweedleDem.
Pray tell why would the Chamber of Commerce be so befuddled as to invite the subPrime Minister to address their monthly luncheon? This stoic beast has not found it possible to utter a single word to the nation in weeks, nay months, and yet that supposedly responsible organization thought it fit to invite that convenient mute to address them? Why? Could he or any of his motley crew of fools have anything to offer that the business titans of Barbados need to hear? Could he offer any hope of a revised plan, a new vision, an alternative solution or even a wildly improbable plan of salvation that would be believable? I think not.
This bafflement of a government should be banned from entering into any new agreements, negotiating any new loans or in any way committing the country in any way whatsoever until a new government takes over. The viscousness, selfishness, lack of caring and basic absence of common sense should preclude them from committing us to further destruction. If this educated lot of buffoons is too dumb to fix the RH pothole roads what makes the Chamber believe that they can fix the economy. Waste of a good lunch hour and good food.
@Fearplay
No need to inquire from you who will win the next general election?
@ Fearplay
It is a standard feature on the Chamber’s calendar to invite whomever holds the office of PM to address the January meeting of the Chamber.
Using your own words, it is just unfortunate that the subPM happens to be still warming the the seat of the PM.
Word on the street is that the morons are going to lay the estimates in mid February.
So if this pans out, let us brace for the moron to hang on for 90 more days after March 6.
At this stage……..what difference does it make……..
The BLP under the leadership of MAM is a party that has lost it’s SOUL .
Weeks away from General Elections the BLP under the leadership of MAM is still unsure about its policy positions amongst it candidates.
The free UWI tuition fees promise is a glaring one .
https://www.barbadostoday.bb/2017/11/02/blp-candidate-and-leader-out-of-sync-on-free-tertiary-education/
The decision of if Barbados 🇧🇧 should become a Republic. – it noteworthy to remember MAM supported this position when she was Deputy Prime Minister !
https://www.barbadostoday.bb/2017/11/03/apologize-Mia/
The BLP under the leadership of MAM note being open and honest with the Barbadian electorate.
https://www.barbadostoday.bb/2017/10/20/2013-blp-nightmare-back-again/#comment-245963
These are but a few examples as to why MAM inspires no confidence….of note amongst the Barbadian rational thinking electorate.
Prodigirl
What in your last posting is so earth shattering ?
The Constitution of Barbados 🇧🇧 mandates from Section 108 to 109 inter alia …..that the Minister of Finance , at the earliest convenience must lay in the Parliament – the new Financial Year the Appropriation Bill .
So the MOF can anytime before April 1 st in any year lay the Appropriation Bill in Parliament.
So are you now blaming the MOF for following the Law. – that is your claim of mid February is true ?
And yes the Laws of Barbados 🇧🇧 provides for General Elections to be held up to 90 days after Parliament has been dissolved.
And yes Cabinet take care of the affsirs of the country during that 90 day period according to the Laws of Barbados 🇧🇧.
So you can get ready to put up new posters on the polls ……..because by the time I ready to ring the bell 🔔..,……your current posters would be FADED or TORN DOWN….,.since the Barbados 🇧🇧 Light & POWER..,,,,,,says they are up illegally..
We are not surprised 😳…….the BLP are Brek Law People (BLP) !!!
• before the new Financial Year
• that is if your claim of a date in mid February is true
• poles
@ dpD at 2:18 PM
My palaver was in direct response to David’s request to give an opinion of the likely outcome of the elections based on the information quantitative and anecdotal that I have. I am so sorry that it did not meet your expectations.
The other queries you posed are outside my area of competence.
Fractured
Why you don’t stop? You recall the no job cuts or the no UWI fees? Wunna hubris gine be the cause of wunna demise. The PR stunting is over!! Any word on the elevated bacteria in the drinking water according to the US Embassy?
@Bernard…outside your area of desire to engage, surely…your area of competence… absolutely No.
But, so be it.
Some minor comments
1) Good to see the ‘20-year independence’ bump, but we are now back in the low 60’s for turnout
2) Given the large size (n), I suspect very small difference would be statistically significantly different. Assuming the null p=0.5
3) Would probably be good to have a column showing total for the winner; even though we know that the winning party is determined by the result of different local races (think of Hillary getting the most votes but losing the election).
4) I doubt the increase in voters was due to an increase in population. How is the increase of registered voters explained?
5) How do you get that solid mass of non-voters to go to the polling booth
6) Apathy or non-apathy? Some countries have 90% turnout….
@ Miller at 3:05 PM
Citizens in a democracy have a right to vote. They also have a right not to vote. They have a right to unintentionally or intentionally to spoil the vote. That is not a reflection of their lack of intelligence or education. Human beings can suffer and do suffer from information overload and the feeling that the information they are fed is misleading. As a result they decide not to exercise their vote. They leave it up to those who are convinced to make the decisions for them . In my opinion that is rational.
As I hinted in an earlier intervention based on past statistics less than a third of the electorate consistently vote. It is only on very important occasions that voter participation has risen above this average.
In some places voter turnout is less than 50%. Minority rule?
All systems of governments have warts, it is up to the citizenry of a country to fight for the one that is ‘fit for purpose’.
http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/123518/us-embassy-issues-caution-regarding-bacteria-tap-water
Lynette Eastmond says John Boyce is an engineer and should therefore be capable of making a professional input into the Sewage debacle.Grenville had to inform her of the various disciplines in the engineer profession.If this is her idea of leadership,count me out.
What I find disingenuous is the DLP,UPP and simple combination of misfits led by Eastmond are all bullying the Labour Party to state its plans and projects.No way Jose.In addition all 3 wannabes attacking the Labour Party for all they are worth.Tells me that the Labour Partynis the most organized party and the party to be beaten.None of the other leaders have the capacity for hard work and sticktoitiveness that MAM can bring to the table.It can safely be said that the majority of the electorate is completely fed up with Staurt and his wild boys.The only viable alternative is the Labour Party but voter behavior is an imponderable.
@ Theophilius G256 at 9:00 PM
A significant percentage of people are followers rather than leaders. They are afraid to make a mistake and refuse to vote. They operate under the notion that if they did not vote they cannot be held responsible for a failed government.If the party succeeds then they will benefit like every other citizen .This was a notion/argument publicly admitted in the recent elections in UK and USA ,especially among the under 30s and better educated.
So we need to do some behaviour research. Or abandon democracy as a useful form of governance.
@ Bernard
You are being VERY generous here…
A significant percentage of people are uninformed brass bowl morons, …with no clue about where they are, ….where they are going, …or how they intend to get there.
Most voters do so for petty, personal, illogical reasons …and we get governments based on which set of idiots made the biggest asses of themselves.
It takes WISDOM to choose a competent government.
There is ONLY one source of wisdom.
That source is diametrically OPPOSITE to the one that we have ensconced at the Garrison.
@Bushie
It is all unraveling isn’t it. Next we will have to be subjected to the yardfowls and yard ducks accusing the local American Embassy of being politically partisan.
Bushie’s claim that there is only one source of wisdom is patently false
It is the kind of thinking aimed at creating a monopoly, with his White man’s god the last one standing.
In spite of albino-centricity and despite the acceptance of many truths at the end of the day he still resorts to the epitome of White thought – the Bible as the word of his fictitious god.
It is high time that we kill that wicked christian god, burn his book, etc
Pachamama at10:04 AM
It is bad to set up straw men only to knock them down yourself. Now you are setting up a straw”christian”god. I am afraid you will have to knock him down all by yourself; we do not know that god which you have described.
Bernard
You seem to be intimating that you know some other god.
That your fiction is different to what we described
Well, have at it!
@ Bernard Codrington January 26, 2018 at 10:29 AM
BC, do you know the one(s) described in the Bhagavad Gita or worshipped by the indigenous people of Peru from which our Pachamama has taken his nom de plume?
What about the one referred to in the Koran as “Allah” who has no ‘special’ or only begotten son called Isa?
From your argument we can ‘garner’ that you too believe in more than one god.
But we prefer our monotheism as taught by the son of Aten and from whom the god of Moses and Abraham is a descendant.
Check your own version of Psalm 104 in your Judeo-Christian book and compare it with its ’Egyptian’ original and tell us who copied from whom.
Again Bernard is being overly generous – true gentleman that he is….
Pacha has built a self-made straw man – in the form of a “white man’s god” which he has defined to be ‘evil’ because of the clear atrocities that has been perpetrated in the name of this alleged entity.
By doing so, Pacha has allowed his nemeses to entrap him in a prison of hopelessness.
Does one hate money because this is what drove people of John’s mindset to enact the Barbados Slave Trade?
Do you hate agriculture because this is what they used to realise their materialistic ends?
Do you hate science because it has been misused by war-loving demons?
The ONLY source of true ‘wisdom’ resides in the BEINGS that initiated the whole concept of life on Earth…..by epistemological definition.
ONLY they can determine the absolute INTENT of their creation.
ANY other iteration of possible purposes can be but idle speculation.
Wisdom is about an understanding, and appreciation, of the ACTUAL purpose of being alive and acting accordingly.
….everything else is brass bowlery, AKA shiite – such as we have flowing down Hastings.
@ David
It HAS UNRAVELED.
Yardfowls don’t even count when the shit hits the fan, and Stuart’s idea of ‘action’ is taking advice from foreigners, and to seek short term fixes – just beyond his term of sabotage.
‘Unraveled’ is an understatement of septic proportions.
Bushie
You contention is imbued your an underlying reason detre in a well rehearsed marketing package which is not wholly unattractive but continues to rest on fictitious planks which include ‘hope’.
But you also have a particular and wickedly contrived meaning for hope. Not the general meaning which all living creatures may have. Even the lion arising from its slumber hopes to make a kill this day. Of course, the bush deer hopes for the reverse. And the rest of the chain of life hangs in the balance.
But your use of hope is not so generic. It has a particular meaning. It has to do with some better life somewhere else. The magical interventionism of some mystery god, never to be seen, but whose anachronistic work of fiction given credence.
So your logical fallacies of straw men could thus be well constructed.
What is more troubling is that you of all people have more than a modicum of truisms in your understandings of reality. Yet, you still find the same conclusion as your internal nemeses.
Some may determine you to be a smart snake oil salesman.
For us there is no heaven and no hell. Humans have no particular reason to be here except as just another manifestation of evolution, as it continues.
As other organisms come and go so too will we.
And Pachamama is getting ready to shake us all off. Indeed, that is the best ‘hope’ for all the other organisms remaining after we are gone.
We are very hopeful for them!
David January 26, 2018 at 9:08 AM #
“It is all unraveling isn’t it. Next we will have to be subjected to the yardfowls and yard ducks accusing the local American Embassy of being politically partisan.”
@ David BU
You should listen to Brass Tacks.
@ Pachamama January 26, 2018 at 12:14 PM #
“For us there is no heaven and no hell. Humans have no particular reason to be here except as just another manifestation of evolution, as it continues.
As other organisms come and go so too will we.
And Pachamama is getting ready to shake us all off. Indeed, that is the best ‘hope’ for all the other organisms remaining after we are gone.”
Pacha, you are firing on all cylinders. Mother Earth is growing weary of the abusive parasites called human who are in need of some deep culling to give Her the chance to recreate.
Are you saying modern man -who thinks he is everlasting- would soon be going the way of the Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon?
We can see him already transforming into homo machino (mechanical man) with his addiction to digital gadgets preparing him for a future of age of the automaton.
The most elusive of the yard birds is the yard-pigeon. Smaller, stronger and smarter than the ac, it appears every election season.
Miller
Yes, we can see no other reality. With certainty, modern man/woman is going the way of the dodo bird.
The only possible proviso would be the population of another planet. That is unlikely for at least another 100 years although interplanetary vehicles are being readied right now.
Stephen Hawkings seems to agree. !00 years at most.
At the rate we’re going earth’s resources will run out within 100 years
So Bushie’s master narrative about some magical by-and-by somewhere in the sky was always utter nonsense
The kind of ignorance only toddlers could believe.
Gazers, or is it GazerTs, u have to stop deleting and re-entering your moniker.
Kind of paranoid
Deleting history
running ccleaner
giant antispyware
webroot secure anywhere
was using an anonymizer but stopped.
Has anyone ever noticed that Mottley supporter Peter Wickham never ever uses the platforms provided to him by the Starcom group to speak about THE BLP ELECTION STRATEGY.
You will see him write articles about what the DLP is supposed to be doing but he is extremely silent about analyzing the BLP strategy.
It is really unfortunate since he is the first person the elite media turns to for political analysis and commentary. He seems unable to separate his worship of Mottley from his role as a supposedly independent social scientist.
Barbados really needs people in political analysis who unlike Peter Wickham, George Belle and Tennyson Joseph have been so personally attached to a political figure or in some cases have been promised high priced consultancies and picks by the BLP that they cannot say anything that might be perceived as negative towards the opposition leader.
It is the height of intellectual dishonesty and deceit.
It becomes worse when these 3 individuals are the only voices that the elite media invite to “explain” political events to Barbadian voters.
Have to agree with NationnBLPnewspaper @ 6.30 am
It is clear that the level is now so low in Barbados, that the media is unable to find even a few commentators who are of even moderate intelligence.
Dennis Johnson and Corey Lane apart, VOB is infested with Peter W – who comes across as an immature little girlish boy with an overly active perception of his own intelligence…
Sanka is out of his league…. what a ‘wussy’ as Gabriel is wont to say…
Yesterday he lambasted the US embassy for advising its citizens in Barbados to boil drinking water – something which practically all travellers do when in foreign jurisdictions. The man somehow seems to think that Uncle Sam should have asked our permission to tell its citizens here to boil water…. SMH
CBC probably closed their talk show because even the DLP yardfowls had come to realise what idiots they had on the radio – and apparently were unable to find any better.
The Advocate is a waste of paper….but maybe a good mechanism to get national awards.
The Nation is a foreign owned organ whose mission has always been to destroy Barbados. They have accomplished this admirably -with Arthur’s full support under the code name -CSME….. and then forcing Thiefing-Thompson and Foolish-Froon to finish off the job…
Long and short….
Barbados is best characterised by what is happening in Hastings….and it seem that no one knows how to fix it.
@ NationBLPnewspaper January 31, 2018 at 6:25 AM
“Has anyone ever noticed that Mottley supporter Peter Wickham never ever uses the platforms provided to him by the Starcom group to speak about THE BLP ELECTION STRATEGY.
You will see him write articles about what the DLP is supposed to be doing but he is extremely silent about analyzing the BLP strategy.”
Isn’t PW- like any other wo(e)man- entitled to change his/her mind about the kind of ‘man’ she/he wants to be in bed with, politically or otherwise?
Wasn’t PW, your self-styled prostitute of journalism, a provider of similar services (currently supplied to the MAM’s BLP) under a David Thompson-led DLP?
Wasn’t your turncoat whore of journalism a keen supporter of a ‘stiff’ client whose overuse of Viagra composed of lying, cheating and stealing led to his ‘untimely passing?
But why fret yourself to death, Ms “NationBLPnewspaper”?
You have your own appointed mouthpiece of economic hocus-pocus and high priest of financial magic to do a similar propaganda job as PW the BLP pussy wicker.
Just listen in a few hours to the Guv with his upbeat report about the imaginary steady-state growth in the Bajan economy thanks to an unprecedented booming winter tourist season which has led to a sudden turnaround in the country’s forex earning fortunes thereby reducing the pressure on the Bajan dollar peg.
You can expect the timely return of some of that $300 million in reserves that went missing almost 5 years ago.
The Guv might be getting on in age and ripe for retirement were he an ‘ordinary’ public sector worker like the BIDC-forced retirees but age does not stop him graduating from the same David Thompson academy whose motto is: ‘I will lie, cheat and steal and fudge numbers to abuse statistics as long as I have a classroom of stupid journalists and yard-fowls (like NationBLPnewspaper) to fool’.