The date of the local government election is scheduled for Monday, March 26, 2012. This date is almost three months after the general election that was controversially held on December 27, 2011. The concern is that it is costly to hold an election thus wouldn’t it be more efficient for both elections to be merged.
I think it would certainly be more cost-effective to set aside one day to keep both elections. I mean elections by its very nature is a disruptive activity; because we are already seeing in the media where protests are taking place because of disapproval of choice of political candidates. Also, the Ministry of Education is planning to extend the school year because naturally school will be used as polling stations which means that they would have to close to regular schooling activity.
I am not making fun of the situation; but the fact remains that vote buying by political parties is a part of our system. Therefore, I am saying that if they had one election then the political parties would also save because then they would only have to buy the votes once instead of two times.
Also, the government would stay because they would only have one set of Election Day workers to pay instead of two. I won’t even mention the situation where some workers from the last election are yet to receive their compensation.
Jamaica is in a very sticky situation where if we are to restore our economy being efficient must take priority. Also, a lot of young people especially are still waiting for the JEEP (Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme) to roll out.
This is just a suggestion to the government for the way forward. In everything we must be conscious of how the resources are allocated. I know that it is not completely their fault, but it is really disorganized to be revising the budget with just over a month left in the fiscal year.
