Jamaica holds parliamentary elections

The Caribbean island nation Jamaica started the parliamentary elections Thursday, with the voting beginning at 7,039 polling stations across the country at 7 a.m. local time (1200 GMT).

The People's National Party (PNP), the ruling party led by incumbent Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, and the main opposition party, the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP), led by Andrew Holness, competed hard for the 63-seat House of Representatives. The winning party will form the cabinet and its leader will be sworn in as the new prime minister.

There were 1,824,410 registered voters for the parliamentary elections, the most in Jamaican electoral history. The elections will be closed at 5 p.m., local time (2200 GMT).

Jamaica, which became independent from the United Kingdom on Aug. 6, 1962, still remains a part of the British Commonwealth, with Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch and head of state. The country's legislature is the bicameral Parliament of Jamaica, which consists of an appointed Senate and a directly elected House of Representatives.

The 21 senators are appointed by the governor-general, 13 of them on the advice of the prime minister, and eight on the advice of the leader of the opposition. The 63 seats of the House of Representatives are directly elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies by first-past-the-post voting, based on universal adult suffrage.

In Jamaica, members on the House of Representatives are elected for a five-year term, though the parliamentary elections do not necessarily take place every five years. Under the constitution, the prime minister has the prerogative to call elections at any time within a five-year span.

The PNP was swept into office following an overwhelming victory in last elections in December 2011 after seizing 42 of the 63 seats in the parliament, while the JLP, the opposition party, only garnered 21 seats.

During the past over four years, Jamaica has experienced stagnant economy, with an average growth rate of less than 1 percent annually. Currently, the country's per capita income is the lowest among the Anglophone Caribbean islands.

Both the PNP candidates and the JLP candidates have emphasized the importance of economic development in their campaign trail.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller and the opposition leader, Andrew Holness, both expressed their confidence in winning as they cast the vote early Thursday morning.

"I don't know how many seats I am going to win, but I know the PNP will remain in power after this election," a beaming Simpson-Miller told reporters, promising she will deliver a speech shortly after the PNP wins Thursday's voting.

After casting her vote, Simpson-Miller called for a peaceful election, insisting no need for intimidation or violence. "I want no intimidation. I want no trouble. I want everybody to go out and cast their vote in peace," she said.

In a press briefing at the noon time, Director of Elections Orrette Fisher said he was satisfied with the voting process and his office had been working hard to ensure that the integrity of the voting is maintained.

Jamaica, now with a population of 2.8 million, has a long history of high crime rate dating back to the 1970s. In 2014, the country was ranked the sixth place in the world by the United Nation's Office on Drugs and Crime in terms of having the highest homicide rate in the world. It had 1,207 murders last year, up nearly 20 percent over the 2014 figure. Endit