Elections in Jamaica

The Parliament of Jamaica has two chambers:

• The House of Representatives has 63 members, elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies.
• The Senate has 21 appointed members: 13 chosen by the Prime Minister and 8 by the Leader of the Opposition.

Jamaica effectively has a two-party system: there are two dominant political parties, and it is difficult for other parties to achieve electoral success. The two parties were founded in 1938 and 1943 and first contested the 1944 election.

Though the years are fixed due to the five-year term of the prime minister, the date of the election is traditionally announced by the ruling party one month in advance. Recently, there has been debate over whether this "flexible date" system is the best for Jamaica, or whether the government should switch to a fixed date system.