Vote where you are planted!
THE EDITOR, Madam:
AS WE move away from local government election 2024, I wish to hop on the bandwagon of election conversations to highlight one of the many issues surrounding ‘elections’. I truly believe that there should be a ‘statute of limitations’ on how long one can legally vote for a member of parliament or councillor after he or she has relocated to another parish.
It i s high time the l aw be changed to force (no, nudge persons in the right direction) to make their vote count where they are residing.
The i ndividuals who live on the ground, the ones who have to deal with the progress or lack thereof, should be the ones who have the say. Not those who have moved out of the area because ‘nuhtin nah gwaan fi di place’. They move out and do not ever contribute to the further development of the area. Some even ‘dash stone behin’ dem’, until election time. We see them all rolling in on the campaign train so ‘dem and dem nyahba...’ or ‘dem come fi show seh time come...’
They then leave feeling good that their preferred individual has won and the cycle – the very reason they did not stay in the community – continues because the MP or councillor chosen continues to do absolutely nothing.
Grow where you are planted. VOTE where you live! Have a say where you reside. You may have done well while you lived there, but you do not know what is going on now. Respectfully, allow those who remain to determine who leads the area. Who feels it, knows it.
Additionally, these voters’ lack of desire to move their votes to where they live is a clear sign that they are not interested in the democracy of the country in a real way. They have no interest in going to the electoral office to make the necessary transfers, so their vote forever remains in their old divisions or constituency. We have to now question, how concerned are individuals about the growth and continued progress of communities ‘their’ communities, so that they should have such a voice to determine who serves or does not serve? It is time for the law to help some persons mind the constituency/division that serves them. Vote where you are planted!
JANICE CHAMBERS-ALLEN (MRS) Concerned Citizen