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introduction
(3) and progressive plans Fayval Williams has for the constituency (2). Her advantage is her tremendous
ummary
: In previous studies the candidate has been the third or fourth most important factor in
determining how people vote (behind tradition, political participation and sometimes party leader).
secondarily (14) because of his responsiveness (16), constant presence (7), warm personality (5) and
effort (4). Persons from wealthy communities spoke about the MP arriving to address a sewage
problem before private contractors that were hired to do it. One wealthy mature woman even
commented that he “looks so cute helping the labourers cutting away a limb from a tree.” Persons of
the usually underserved communities praised him for fencing play areas, renovating centres, building
courts for basketball and netball; and for providing education support, and disaster relief.
Eight persons expressed that they felt influenced by the warmth (3); efforts, despite short
ability to mobilize. While there may be much fanfare and excitement about Andre Hylton, the JLP
candidate has been very focused in reminding the mass of Labourites why they should remain with the
party. She has also questioned whether or not the top performing MP could have achieved more with
the resources available – and has suggested to many that with the same amount of resources she could
have achieved more.
Responsive
50%
Always
present
22%
Warm personality
16%
Effort
12%
Chart 15: Reasons Given for Pledging to Vote for Andre Hylton
S
Despite the performance of Andre Hylton, which has made the people of his constituency place his
impact above political participation and party leader, his retention of this seat is not simple. The
constituency does not afford him the comfort of a large proportion of traditional (certain) votes. Instead
there is an oversized pool of persons (almost 30% who has not expressed a desire to vote, remain
uncertain even on the 19
th
day of February, which is less than a week from the General Election. In Table
5 it is expressed that his mild advantage is erodible simply because of these complexities, added to the
fact that he has no tangible lead. Given the tremendous mobilizing skills of Fayval Williams, the
prediction of the winner of this seat remains somewhat unsettled.