Johng,

Having been here for the past 5 elections and this upcoming election number 6 on the 25th, I think I have a little first hand perspective on the situation that may clear things up a bit.

I was here for the '93, '97 and 2002 elections where the PNP retained their seats and PJ Patterson was the Prime Minister (for us American folks, you dont vote for Prime Minister, the PM is from the party that won the most seats in the general election). PJ Patterson resigned for his own reasons, and and this allowed Portia Simpson-Miller to become the first female PM. In 2007, after the PNP being in power for the previous 18 years, the JLP won the majority of seats and Bruce Golding became the Prime Minister.

Please note that in all of the elections above, you will not find any news stories of any serious election related violence, even as the party in power for 18 years (PNP) turned the reigns over to their opposition (JLP). The transition was as peaceful as any in North America.

During the JLP controlled Parliament, the US asked for the extradition of the "Don" of Tivoli Gardens, Dudas. This was not during any election time and this unrelated Dudas affair was the eventual cause of Bruce Golding resigning for not handling the US extradition of Dudas in an efficient manner. Many were killed (numbers vary widely) in Tivoli Gardens which was the last of the "old style" garrison communities that have been spoken about in this thread. While some places are still referred to as "garrisons", they no longer resemble those of the past as in 1980. People from 1980 would not recognize Tivoli today. With the US monitoring of Dudas, there is no way he is running things from his prison cell in the US. We have driven through Tivoli Gardens and it is a different place than it was in the "garrison" days.

We have first hand experience of how the island handled the situation as the exact moment the government went after Dudas in Tivoli, we were at a roadside bar in MoBay on our way to Port Antonio. While we sensed an underlying anxiousness wherever we stopped (and we stopped a lot), when we entered the establishment, the radios and TVs were turned off for our benefit since we were perceived to be on vacation. When we mentioned we lived here, the radios and TVs would come back on and the conversations would become mostly one of sadness for what was transpiring. Soon the sadness would change to determined talk of not allowing any unrest to occur in their area. We had some very interesting conversations. We ended up having a safe, easy journey and noticed no unusual activity at all in any of the many cities we passed through on the North Coast.

Long after this situation was over, due to growing complaints about Bruce Golding's handling of the Dudas situation, Bruce Golding chose to resign and Andrew Holness became the new PM. Oddly enough we were in Kingston when this occurred. In a government office, the day we got there Golding was still PM and his picture was on the wall. When we went back to the same office a couple days later, his picture was gone and you could see the outline of where it was hanging.

In 2011, due to many reasons including the new and disliked IMF loan that the JLP arranged, and also because of the Dudas/Golding affair and Andrew Holness' relative inexperience as PM, the parties once again changed positions. The PNP became the ruling party with Portia Simpson-Miller becoming the first female Prime Minister by way of the election victory of her party. Once again, this transition took place as peacefully as any in North America.

During the last election, when Andrew Holness was driving his motorcade through Red Ground, we were watching from the Red Dragon and there were people wearing the JLP "green" showing their support, some folks in the PNP "orange" obviously not showing support, and yet some wearing both green and orange showing how much these old symbols of the past have decreased in any real meaning. There was cheering and waving by everyone - horns being heard and smiles all around. People saw the Prime Minister in their community, the party mattered little.

Times do change and Jamaica is changing with it.