Why I refuse to vote

Melville Cooke

I MEL COOKE, being of sound mind and of my own free will, refuse to be enumerated, much less to vote. I have never held a National Identification Card and the only ink that has ever been on my fingers is from a faulty ball-point pen.

My earliest recollection of political activity is parts of the 1980 election campaign. Then 9 years old, I saw an aspiring Member of Parliament handing out Cheese-Trix at Cotton Tree in Morant Bay, St. Thomas. I don't know if I was more disgusted by the donor or the recipients ­ and there were many.

It was also a time when I first heard a gunshot fired in anger, as a motorcade passed on the main road some 100 metres from the Lyssons All-Age School. We later learnt that someone's finger had been shot off.

And it was also a time when the only place to get basic food items was Mr. Myrie's shop in York, to which my mother would make regular treks. But I can never forget that in a few days after the JLP victory a particular supermarket in Morant Bay threw hundreds of pounds of rice and weevils away at the rear of its premises.

They didn't even bother to hide.

Fast-forward about 17 or 18 years and I am a young sub-editor at the Gleaner Company, responsible on that particular day for closing the paper under the supervision of Carl Wint. He has heard from the crime reporter that a riot is in progress at the General Penitentiary and prisoners are being killed. He is at the desk I am working from, the phone rings and I answer.

The person gives their name as a member of the upper echelons of the JLP and asks for Mr. Wint. It is the first of several calls with "updates" by two high-ranking members of the JLP on the number of prisoners killed, all in an effort to ensure that the latest, highest figure is published.

Then just before the 1997 General Election the security forces invade Tivoli Gardens, killing three women but finding none of the gunmen and tunnels they were purportedly looking for. To this day the PNP defends its action, the slaughter of innocent people being neither here nor there.

Although those few dead are nothing compared to the over 800 killed in the near civil war leading up to the 1980 election. It is a figure that only Michael Manley seemed moved by in any way.

But that is Manley, not the PNP.

The basic fact of politics in Jamaica is that our lives and deaths do not matter to those who seek office, except as far as we are required to mark an X. Murder and police killings become statistics to be used to compare performances of JLP or PNP administrations; the deaths of mothers, fathers and children are used to score political points.

They do not care two hoots.

I am sick of hearing "when my party was in Government blah, blah, blah". The JLP and the PNP are like an elderly couple comparing notes on a relationship that matters only to them and is remembered only by them, gnashing their false teeth as the great-grandchildren sit on the floor in heavy, two-day old diapers.

Both parties have failed to reach an acceptable standard in shaping Jamaica. Choosing between the JLP and the PNP is about the same as being cornered by two thieves. One says he or she is going to rob then kill you, the other says he or she will kill then rob you and you need to pick an option.

Not much choice, is there?

And I can never forget that it is really a matter of life or death. While the politicians of both major parties are haggling over who did what, when, where and how, people are dying. Not one political heavyweight has ever had to flee their homes under police guard. Not one of them has ever been the victim of a drive-by shooting. Not one of them has had their homes fire-bombed.

But the ant was right. What is joke to you is death to me.

Political relics

Both the PNP and the JLP continue to harbour political relics, although there has been an attempt to infuse new blood. But this transfusion includes past members of the UWI's Guild of Undergraduates, a breeding ground for political pests, it seems. Judging by what I know of the Guild and the recent raffle fiasco, that is bad blood. Very bad blood.

May as well give blood, which is infected with a deadly disease, to an accident victim. It may keep him or her alive for a while, but death is sure, slow and hard.

I will not be sucked into the trend of voting because I want to "vote out" one party or the other. I stood outside the St. Ann's Bay Courthouse during the vote-counting in the recent by-election and saw the sufferers howling for PNP blood. I watched the JLP victory parade as it extended from the Courthouse past the police station back to the Lime Hall turn-off. I saw Seaga head up the parade and the people dancing in the streets and shouting: "De suffaration done!"

And I thought we have been here before. I remembered the countdown to deliverance in 1980, the resurgence of hope with Manley in 1989. And two decades later we are at 1980 again.

I will not be voting out anyone because in the end there is no difference between the PNP and the JLP. Their objective is to win the General Election and stay in power as long as possible. That's it.

As for the "achievements", transportation, roads, housing, water and electricity are not options. They are standard equipment. Claiming to have done something good in providing these essentials is a bit like Cable and Wireless trumpeting that pre-paid cellular phones are now hooked up for life, or there is no charge for incoming calls. So what? Am I supposed to be impressed?

Basic life amenities are a right, not a privilege as the JLP and PNP would have us believe.

To this point the omission of the National Democratic Movement (NDM) has been glaring. Morris Cargill put it more adroitly than I ever can. Coming as it does from the PNP and the JLP, the NDM is more of a bowel movement than anything else.

In addition, in all his repentance Bruce Golding never told us what he was repenting of. Incidents, names, guns, bodies. What kind of hand-washing is that, with no soap around?

Those who know where the bodies are have established a code of "Omerta", of silence in "Cosa Nostra". The Truth and Reconciliation Commission idea was ridiculed to death and the televised forum on "The Politics of Crime" was a joke, complete with see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil in the forms of Messrs. Patterson, Golding and Seaga.

We will never know how so many people have died and lives destroyed in pursuit of political power in Jamaica.

Now that Mr. Golding has stepped aside, it makes no difference. If less than 400 of 2,000 delegates in the movement saw it fit to vote for their leader, why the hell should I suit up for the NDM?

So I refuse to vote. Which is different from not bothering to vote. It is an active statement that I choose neither of the options open to me. By giving up that fundamental right, I choose not to get involved in something nasty - a bit like my stance on partner plans, actually.

I cannot stop political bigwigs from honouring dead thugs with their prominent presence at their funerals. I cannot stop large contracts from being awarded to party faithful. I cannot stop political rankings from travelling in large, air-conditioned four-wheel drive vehicles and not deportees. I cannot hold anyone responsible for the missing money which the Auditor-General reports every year without failure.

But I can refuse to vote. And I do.

I know it does not stop either party one bit. I know their faithful fools will continue to vote and fight for them and one leader or the other will claim to have "the people's mandate". I know that it is not exactly Fidel, Raul and Che in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. But in this crazy, nasty, unfair, deadly thing we call Jamaican politics it is the one choice I am able to make.

And I find it enormously satisfying.

Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.

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