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Table 3: Breakdown of Respondents
CATEGORIES
MALES
FEMALES
PN 18‐34Y
30
38
PN 35+Y
38
50
UM 18‐34Y
28
38
UM 35+Y
36
46
TOTAL
132
(43%)
172
(57%)
The PNP’s skip of the National Debate
The data in Chart 1 show that the debate was important to Jamaicans. A significant number of persons
(138 or 45%) felt offended by the PNP skipping the debate: 21% felt cheated of their right to be
informed via the exchange, 20% felt insulted, and 4% were so angered that they expressed explicit
dislike for the Leader of the PNP (with all of the latter stating that they had disliked much about her but
that such dislike had waned between 2007 and days before the 2016 General Election). Twenty percent
(20%) of respondents felt the PNP’s skip of the debate robbed them of the chance to see Andrew
Holness and his team defend their proposed tax break; and another 16% felt the absence of the debate
“killed the election vibes, ” which impacted voter turn‐out. Nonetheless, 9% of respondents thought it
was a commendable strategy on the part of the PNP to skip the debate; but most lamented that it
backfired. Nine percent (9%) of the respondents expressed that “debates are usually a waste of precious
time.”
Calculations show that 62% of all the females were offended by the skipping of the debate, compared to
29% of the males; 53% of the young were offended, compared to 39% of the mature; and 36% of the
poor and near‐poor were offended, compared to 55% of the upper middle and middle classes combined.
These figures show that gender was the primary categorical variable, followed by class and maturity in
ranked order. The data in Table 4 represent a multivariate examination using the 3 categorical variables.
Young poor and near‐poor (PN) males were the least offended (17%), followed by mature PN males
(21%). Young upper middle and middle class (UM) females were the most offended (84%), followed by
more mature women of the same classes. More than a half of young PN females were also offended
(53%). Note too that young educated males were the only male group with 50% or more being
offended. The most critical point to note from this section of the data is that
young middle and upper
middle class females are likely to be the most critical of any action considered to be a breach of their
democratic rights.
Throughout the ‘Why Jamaicans Vote’ study they were the most critical of Jamaican
politics, and had the highest degree of apathy. As we shall see later,
their apathy was turned to protest
very late in the run up to the election.