ON DECEMBER 11, 1997, a week before the general election of December 18, this newspaper carried an article by this writer, headlined, "Could there be a coalition government?"

It began:

"The number of seats that are up for grabs in next week's general election is an even- numbered 60. This has raised the possibility in the minds of some people, of the election ending in a dead heat - two parties winning 30 seats each, three, 20 seats each, or a variety of other combinations - and two of the three having to form a coalition government."

The third party referred to in that scenario, was the National Democratic Movement (NDM), but even its most ardent supporters now agree that if it didn't figure in the 1997 general election equation when support for it was at an all-time high (its 58 candidates received a total of 36,700 or 4.6 per cent of the votes in the election), it certainly won't create a ripple this time around.

But what is a coalition government? Simply defined, it is a temporary alliance of members of two or more political parties to form the governing party. As David Robertson observes in his Dictionary of Politics, 'Coalition usually occurs in modern parliaments when no single political party can muster a majority of votes."

So in the Jamaican scenario, if the People's National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party were to tie in today's elections (as happened in Trinidad and Tobago on December 10, 2001 when the People's National Movement and the United National Congress received 18 seats each) they could conceivably form the government of national unity that the New Jamaica Alliance has been calling for.

After all, as political philosophies go, now that the Cold War is history, aren't the PNP and the JLP like tweedledee and tweedleedum - neither easy to distinguish from the other or for that matter worth distinguishing from the other?

But perish the thought of them uniting in government. Jamaicans are not as tolerant of each other as Trinidadians are, even given the divide there between Indians and Blacks.

A tied election could see the dons come into their own, with the result being nothing short of full-fledged civil war and with gunmen in green and orange staking their claim - on behalf of the PNP and the JLP - to Gordon House.

The PNP and the JLP have too many egotistical personalities to allow them to work together meaningfully in the best interests of Jamaica. Too many mortal enemies among them.

So the conventional wisdom is that if, come today, the election results lead to a tie, there would have to be new elections almost immediately in the hope that the second time around the results would be so clear-cut that there would be no need for a coalition government.

The appointment of a Prime Minister calls for the Governor-General, acting in his discretion, to appoint the Member of the House of Representatives, who "in his judgement, is best able to command the confidence of a majority of the members of that House."

If today's general election were to end in a 30-30 tie, who would you wager that the Governor-General, would appoint, given his political antecedents. The Rt. Hon. Edward Phillip George Seaga, P.C., or the Rt. Hon. Percival Noel James Patterson, P.C.?

Following are the results of the previous 13 general elections Jamaica has had since its was granted universal adult suffrage in 1944:

1944 (32 Constituencies) JLP -- 22 seats PNP -- 5 seats

Independents -- 5 seats

1949 (32 Constituencies) JLP -- 17 seats PNP -- 13 seats

Independents -- 2 seats

1955 (32 Constituencies) PNP -- 18 seats JLP -- 14 seats

1959 (45 Constituencies) PNP -- 29 seats JLP -- 16 seats

1962 (45 Constituencies) JLP -- 26 seats PNP -- 19 seats

1967 (43 Constituencies) JLP -- 33 seats PNP -- 20 seats

1972 (53 Constituencies) PNP -- 37 seats JLP -- 16 seats

1976 (60 Constituencies) PNP -- 47 seats JLP -- 13 seats

1980 (60 Constituencies) JLP -- 51 seats PNP -- 9 seats

1983 (60 Constituencies) PNP boycott -- no voting - JLP -- 60 seats

1989 (60 Constituencies) PNP -- 45 seats JLP -- 15 seats

1993 (60 Constituencies)PNP -- 52 seats JLP -- 8 seats

1997 (60 Constituencies)PNP 50 - JLP 10.