'Diaspora should not be allowed to vote'
Published:Saturday | June 18, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Carl Gilchrist, Gleaner Writer
AMID CALLS from some sections of the Jamaican diaspora for them to be given voting rights, chairman of the United States North East Region, Patrick Beckford, has reiterated his stance that this should not be so.
Beckford, an advisory board member, told The Gleaner Thursday night at the Jamaican Diaspora Convention 2011 at Sunset Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios that sending remittances does not equate to voting rights. He suggested the diaspora should instead concentrate on helping Jamaica in other ways.
Several members of the UK diaspora have been advocating for them to be given voting rights.
But Beckford argued that, in the Westminster style of governance, constituencies can be manipulated easily. "Compare that to votes coming in from 50 States in the United States of America, as Jamaicans are spread all over", he argued. "And who is going to pay for all of this? There are a lot of things you have to look at," he said.
No right to meddle in local politics
Beckford continued: "Remember the Constitution of Jamaica states that children who were born overseas of a Jamaican parent, all they have to do is apply for Jamaican citizenship or whatever, and then they would be entitled to vote. So the question is: My two children who were born in New Jersey, USA, who have no real connection as to the politics, the representatives, should they be given that right to dictate who their third or second cousins who live in Falmouth are governed by?"
And regarding arguments put forward by some persons that Americans overseas are allowed to vote, Beckford said such persons have to have a residence in the United States in order to vote on absentee ballot.
"And sending all this remittance and all that, that doesn't equate to granting you the right to vote," said Beckford.
One of the things the diaspora needs to do is concentrate on one or two issues and do it well, the board member said.
"I subscribe to the notion that we should copy from some of these successful diasporas and one of the overriding things that I realise is that most of them concentrate on one or, at most, two things.
"I'm looking at how we can improve Jamaica's human development, and there are creative ways we could do it; we could do it using technology, and also using some of the infrastructure that is already in place in Jamaica."