Dear Editor,
Dorothy Pine-McLarty, chairman of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), was seen on television on Thursday, September 24, 2015 bemoaning the unacceptably high level of voter apathy currently stalking Jamaica. She has rightly said that the situation is deeply troubling and poses a real threat to our established democracy. I hope that the people of Jamaica have no intention of allowing the country to lapse into dictatorship before we begin to value our democratic tradition.
Pine-McLarty unfortunately never posited a view about how we arrived where we are, or gave some enlightenment as to the danger signals which, as a country, we need to heed in order to reverse the trend. Simply encouraging people to vote, despite their lack of conviction, or worst, against their will, is in itself not very democratic, and particularly in the Jamaican context where the electorate hardly see themselves as stakeholders in the process.
I wish to assure her that I would be minded to start a new political party to widen the political landscape and shore up democracy by means of expanding choice.
The very ECJ which Pine-McLarty chairs could now perhaps take a deeper look at the staggering and prohibitive costs to register a new political party, as well as the type of ground rules which can help to prevent the established parties from choking any new aspiring party which will expose them to unwelcome competition.
I am not sure what is the remit of the ECJ in this regard and what will or will not taint it, but having broken her silence on the issue, Pine-McLarty needs to commit to a lot more in creating a better sphere of understanding of what is a seminal issue, or back off.
As Jamaica contemplates and debate the issue of political party financing, for example, one needs to have authoritative discourse on such sensitive matters which will help to determine whether a Ras Astor Black Jamaica Alliance Movement can be helped, or will never see the light of Parliament.
These are issues which will ostensibly help in discouraging voter apathy and improve democracy in Jamaica.
Derrick D Simon
Kingston 8
derrickdsimon@yahoo.com
If we're going to talk about voter apathy
-->
Dorothy Pine-McLarty, chairman of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), was seen on television on Thursday, September 24, 2015 bemoaning the unacceptably high level of voter apathy currently stalking Jamaica. She has rightly said that the situation is deeply troubling and poses a real threat to our established democracy. I hope that the people of Jamaica have no intention of allowing the country to lapse into dictatorship before we begin to value our democratic tradition.
Pine-McLarty unfortunately never posited a view about how we arrived where we are, or gave some enlightenment as to the danger signals which, as a country, we need to heed in order to reverse the trend. Simply encouraging people to vote, despite their lack of conviction, or worst, against their will, is in itself not very democratic, and particularly in the Jamaican context where the electorate hardly see themselves as stakeholders in the process.
I wish to assure her that I would be minded to start a new political party to widen the political landscape and shore up democracy by means of expanding choice.
The very ECJ which Pine-McLarty chairs could now perhaps take a deeper look at the staggering and prohibitive costs to register a new political party, as well as the type of ground rules which can help to prevent the established parties from choking any new aspiring party which will expose them to unwelcome competition.
I am not sure what is the remit of the ECJ in this regard and what will or will not taint it, but having broken her silence on the issue, Pine-McLarty needs to commit to a lot more in creating a better sphere of understanding of what is a seminal issue, or back off.
As Jamaica contemplates and debate the issue of political party financing, for example, one needs to have authoritative discourse on such sensitive matters which will help to determine whether a Ras Astor Black Jamaica Alliance Movement can be helped, or will never see the light of Parliament.
These are issues which will ostensibly help in discouraging voter apathy and improve democracy in Jamaica.
Derrick D Simon
Kingston 8
derrickdsimon@yahoo.com
If we're going to talk about voter apathy
-->