Young voters feel unheard

Sixteen young Jamaicans engaged in various professions and areas of study are warning that, while electors in their age group are willing to participate in the political and governance process, they are being turned off by a sense that their voices are only being used for polite tokenism.

The group of young professionals, ages 19 to 35 years old and brought together by communication strategist Rajae Danvers at The Gleaner’s North Street offices in Kingston last week, cited various factors, including a lack of serious consultation, decades of unfulfilled promises, disrespect and disregard for youth views, a lack of communication and token engagement efforts, as causes for their concerns.

At the same time, they expressed wide and varied views about issues impacting the nation, its current status and the impact on their lives going forward.

Danvers described the 16 as some of the best and brightest minds in the country, who are dedicated to working for its betterment, but who want to be properly engaged, taken seriously, and to have more than a token presence at the table.

“I surveyed the landscape in Jamaica, which continues to hold this big narrative of youth apathy, and I thought it is important to bridge the gap between the perceived apathy to, and the why. So this activity of a cross-pollination of minds would help us to get to that why, because we need to fix it. And so, in an effort to be a fixer, I thought to organise a group of what I described as the finest minds I could come across to fix this issue of why the perceived or real disengagement,” Danvers told The Gleaner.

From accountability to under-representation in politics and Parliament, the young Jamaicans are not happy.

One member of the group, Yanique Tracey, works in the field of education.

COMMON VIEW

She said the common view of ‘disengagement by young people’ is used in a flippant way. She rubbished the idea, instead stating that the problem is in how young people are engaged.

“When we say that young people are disengaged, it is something that floats in the air a lot and, from my perspective and from dealing with the young minds I have engaged with, that is not so. It’s not that they’re not participating or they don’t want to participate. I don’t think that they’re engaged properly,” she argued.

“Young people are disengaged because they feel as if they’re played into a performative matter over and over, but young people are very interested in the political landscape and the policies that affect them, like education policies. But the question of many [is], ‘Why are they still disconnected?’ And one of their questions is whether they are truly welcomed at the table or [if] it’s just a façade. That is what we need to dissect,” she suggested.

Karyl Thorpe is an international relations student. She, too, reinforced the view that young people do not feel their views are valued.

“Young people are interested in politics, and we know this from the conversations with our friends. [The sense of disengagement] is not just because they are disconnected or they’re disengaged; they feel as if when they do engage they are not heard. They’re not listened to so, the recommendations that we have made time and time again go on their file into a cute little cabinet and nobody ever opens it again, while we have the problems that we’re trying to fix diligently and ardently,” she told the forum.

Deshawn Carter, another member of the group, is currently administering a survey around issues such as voter apathy and political participation.

“One of the questions that we asked was, if you haven’t voted in a previous local government election or a general election, and you were able to vote, why didn’t you? And so far, the chief response that we’re seeing is because they feel as if their vote doesn’t count, and I feel like that’s a loaded response, and it incorporates every single thing that everybody in here has said so far. And so, the idea of youth involvement in government and politics and nation-building being tokenistic, I see that coming out a lot,” said the youth leader.

According to him, much of the disengagement by that subset is because they see no ideological difference between the two parties, which they consider to be polarising.

“When we say our vote doesn’t count, or if I vote, both parties are the same, I think persons are somewhat referring to the lack of choice between the two parties’ ideologies. I feel like that’s an issue that a lot of young persons have nowadays,” Carter expressed.

He said older persons are able to appreciate the ideological differences between the parties, but many of today’s generation are not privy to the historical ideological differences.

As a result, “voting, to them, doesn’t make a difference because you’re electing essentially the same government in place”.

Acknowledging that the crime-reduction effort is worthy of celebration, he said the messaging from the Government was not relatable, as it did not make the link between crime reduction and its impact on the everyday lives of people.

“So, being able to go to school without necessary fears of being robbed or being attacked or other things like that. Even fiscal policies, the recent changes that have been made to the Students’ Loan Bureau - no guarantors, are we stressing how that has impacted the lives of tertiary students and young persons across the board? So, I think that disconnect can be contributed or attributed to the disengagement,” he argued.

It was the most alarming issue for all the participants as they expressed their grievances with how the process has shut them out.

Leshaun Blake is a young professional in law enforcement.

He made it clear that he was not speaking on behalf of any agency or body, but himself.

He believes elected representatives must be held accountable for unfulfilled promises, and it is the prime reason for their disengagement.

“They don’t see how [promises] are going to benefit them, because the persons who they see in the Parliament are not being held accountable for the promises they are making and have done nothing about it, especially promises that are not necessarily benefiting the youth. So they’re saying that them voting is just going to be the repeat of the same thing. So that’s why a lot of them aren’t engaged. For me as a youth leader, I kind of understand the point of the whole voting process, which is why I am doing it, and I want to choose who is leading the country,” he said.

For Justin Johnson, the disengagement of youth is a direct result of the broken social contract.

“I think every society has a contract with its youth, with its elderly. The youth are a bit fresh, they don’t know what they’re doing as much, but they have good opportunity and they have good stick-to-itiveness. Then eventually you’ll be able to get land, car, house, education, your own place, and so on. And we see, increasingly, that the contract isn’t being honoured; and we see, increasingly, housing prices are astronomical; education that we say we’re supposed to work so hard at to get opportunity, is being devalued,” Johnson expressed.

He argued that there was a lack of appreciation for their educational pursuits.

The most recent RJRGLEANER-commissioned Don Anderson poll has captured the sentiments of the members of the group of young professionals, noting a decline in participation in the voting process by the 18-35 years old age cohort.

According to Anderson, nearly 35 per cent of respondents between ages 18 and 24 answered ‘yes’, as did 42 per cent of respondents between 25 and 34 years old, when asked if they planned to cast a ballot, which showed declines of four and two percentage points, respectively, when compared with the poll conducted earlier in August. For many, they make an effort to come to the table because of their keen interest in nation-building.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com