The Tribune

By SIMON

IN HIS book, Expert Political Judgment, political psychologist and writer Philip Tetlock, analysed more than 82,000 predictions made by 284 experts over a two-decade span. He discovered that the average expert was “roughly as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.”

Hyperbole aside, a number of predictions about the 2026 general election by veteran politicians and observers was spectacularly wrong. Some suggested the Free National Movement (FNM) would win handsomely in a wave. Though well-meaning, their assumptions about the electorate, based on past experience, were incorrect.

Others rightly predicted a comfortable win for the incumbent Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), though some of these prognosticators suggested that the Opposition would do much better.

The Nassau Guardian provided a good in-depth look at last week’s vote. The numbers are but a prelude to a larger story. The broader story about the results is still to be written. It will require an extended period of discernment, careful study, humility, and the ability to question many longstanding assumptions.

A number of those making broad claims about the numbers are the very same ones who got the results wrong. In some quarters, there is the proverbial Monday morning quarterbacking.

There are many hypotheses about the PLP’s win, the FNM’s loss, and the continued rise of the Coalition of Independents (COI). Another word for hypothesis is “guess.”

What is clear is that there is political fragmentation, with both the PLP and the FNM losing base support, though the PLP’s well-fed, larger, and loyal base is clearly more inclined to come out. The days of both parties having approximately 40 percent or so of the vote appears to be over.

Moreover, the COI is attracting an increasing number of voters. To call it a protest vote or party misses the point. The COI is a third party with seeming staying power that eluded the Democratic National Alliance.

The COI  did better than the Opposition in two seats. Pinewood and Englerston. This is exceptional. It’s a warning sign for both major parties, particularly the FNM.

“In the recent election,” The Guardian reported, “the Coalition of Independents (COI) received 17,095 votes — 12 percent of the overall votes cast. Eight percent of total registered voters voted for the COI. This represented a notable increase in support for the third party.

“In 2021, the COI secured 8,388 votes (6.64 percent of overall votes cast). Its leader, Lincoln Bain, had the strongest showing of all COI candidates.”

Lincoln Bain is a colorful character with, euphemistically, a colorful background. If the strategy to defeat him and the COI is to simply attack them, this has had, and will continue to have, limited effect for a number of voters.

Mr. Bain is like the populist Reform leader Nigel Farage in the UK, although there are compelling differences. Farage sits in the House of Commons. His party, Reform, has won handsomely in local elections across the UK. Moreover, Reform is outpolling the incumbent Labour Party, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens. 

Reform could win the most seats at the next general election, even if it does not have enough seats to form a government. Still, there are many events that could trip up Farage, including his equally colorful past and finances.

Farage and Bain are populists like Donald Trump and others who possess a feral genius for exploiting and leveraging the understandable frustrations, often deep-seated anger, and resentment toward the elites that many voters disdain.

Populists share a similar character and agenda: an anti-establishment persona; a laser-like focus on immigration; an ability to respond to economic and social frustration with easy answers; serving as the voice of the forgotten; oodles of charisma; and media savvy and presence, particularly the clever use of storytelling and social media.

Such populists appear “real” to voters, warts and all. There are right-wing and left-wing populists. Not all populists are self-seeking, self-dealing, and power hungry.

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is an outsider and progressive populist who eschews anti-immigration politics. His populist appeal brought out scores of disaffected and indifferent voters, including many young people, who formed an electoral coalition to catapult the 34-year-old political novice into the mayoralty of the largest city in the United States.

Both major parties have future risks if they do not understand the politics and possibilities of populism. In The Bahamas, this includes the naked, raw, and open transactional nature of Bahamians, who expect favors, patronage, money, and “tings” from politicians.

The Guardian noted “that there were 139,026 votes counted for a voter turnout of 66.4 percent. This compares to 65 percent in 2021.”

For many democracies, including in the region, this is a good turnout, though well below what Bahamians came to except as fairly recently as 2017.

What is the new voting pattern that The Bahamas may be settling into with many voters disaffected with politics and disinclined to vote? Are we settling into a pattern of 60 percent-plus of voters? Might the number of voters decline further? Can more Bahamians be attracted to voting by the major traditional parties through a combination of strategies, including their leadership, candidates, brands, and ideas?

The reasons for the indifference and apathy of just under 40 percent of voters will require in-depth study and conversations with these voters. Why are this many people sucking their teeth at politics?

“The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) dominated the field with 71,245 votes — 51 percent of the overall votes cast. However, just 34 percent of all registered voters got the party elected,” The Guardian pointed out.

Similar to other countries, are we settling into a patten where a government can achieve a landslide of seats with only a plurality of the vote? Most Bahamians arguably do not support, or like, either the PLP or Prime Minister Philip Davis. Still, they are the government because they motivated their declining base to support them.

What is the quality and character of Bahamian democracy when the majority of citizens appear not to support the government of the day?

As the PLP forms a new government, the FNM’s soul-searching must be broad, deep, radical, and honest. The party faces bleak prospects if it fails to understand its loss, the minds of voters of all affiliations and no affiliation, and the power of populism.

Though giddy with their win, there are many perils for the PLP, one of which exploded days after its re-election. Events upend all manner of plans and stratagems by those inebriated by power. The party should not assume that its formula to win this election will always pertain.

For their part, the COI already has a new membership drive running. Their support will likely grow. They feel buoyed by the results.

It would be useful for the University of The Bahamas and others to more deeply analyse the election results. This would be a good academic exercise and good for our democracy.

For the political parties, especially the FNM, however, such understanding and study are a matter of survival as a party that can win government.