Make vote-buying illegal

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

The sordid issue of vote-buying has long been an unfortunate feature of Jamaican elections. So bad a stain has it been on our democracy that the authorities have sought to use moral suasion to have the practice expunged from our electoral process.

As such, the issue is included in the Political Code of Conduct agreed to by the country's two main political movements — the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People's National Party (PNP).

Section f (i) of Appendix 1 of the code mandates that "candidates or others acting on behalf of candidates must not use funds derived from any source, public or private, to improperly influence electoral choices".

Unfortunately, this provision of the code is ignored with impunity by some politicians, and in a number of the cases that have come to our attention we believe the breaches are sanctioned by the hierarchy of the parties.

We raise this issue against the background of the lead story in this week's Sunday Observer reporting on the insistence of a group of young men in St Thomas to sell their votes on Election Day.

Our reporter, who spoke to the young men, wrote that most of them, eager for change, had voted in the 2007 general election but had now found themselves no better off for their efforts.

"We are no dunce, we are pushing for what we want, but at the same time, for us to vote today, they (politicians) would have to pay us for today, tomorrow and even for a week," the story quoted one of the young men, a 23-year-old first-year student at a prominent teachers' college in Kingston.

"Give us what you can give us now, because at the end of the day, we still have to find our own college fees, we still have to mind our pickney off our own. We just want what we can get now, give it to us now, because we know we won't see you after," the young man said, throwing out his comments to politicians in general.

That, we hold, is a sad development in our politics which speaks to a number of troubling issues.

First, is that there exists Jamaicans who have lost confidence in our political system. Indeed, that very fact was obvious in the low 52 per cent voter turnout on December 29.

Second, is that people feel a need to make economic gain from that disenchantment.

Third, that too many of our politicians have corrupted our electoral process by trying to influence outcomes with bribes.

The sad reality is that this practice of paying people for their votes will continue as long as unemployment, poverty and inadequate education remain prevalent among the electorate. For individuals who are employed and educated are less likely to sell their franchise. Those voters tend to be more concerned with issues, rather than the fluff that is often delivered from campaign platforms.

While we commend the JLP and the PNP for placing a lot of effort into observing the provisions of the Political Code of Conduct, particularly those that address the issues of violence and voter intimidation, we get a sense that they are not as rigorous in their commitment to end vote-buying.

Maybe, therefore, the country needs to move from moral suasion to legislative sanction for breaches of the code in much the same way that our law enforcers are subject to criminal sanction when they are found guilty of corruption.

It is a discussion worth having if we intend to totally clean up our electoral system.

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Make vote-buying illegal