#JaVotes2016: Young voters want jobs

By: Admin

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The main reason for turning up to vote in today's elections is for more jobs, two youth electors in St. Andrew East Rural said.

"Mi want the increase weh dem promise so mi a vote fi di party weh a go create the jobs dem," 27-year-old Lorenzo Bennett, who was casting his ballot for the third time, told The Gleaner.

Though 23-year-old Alicia Brown remained undecided, she also insisted she plans to hold whichever party wins, to the promise of job creation.

First time candidates – the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Juliet Holness and the People’s National Party (PNP) Imani Duncan Price – are contesting the elections in the constituency  which historically has gone to the PNP eight times, with the JLP taking the reins four out of the last 12 elections since 1959.

Both candidates have been in the constituency now for a year.

For Brown, it was a matter of trying to decide whether "it even matter, to participate.”

She laughed at the irony of her leaning against a fence, wrestling with whether to board the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) number 62 bus to head down to her community to vote.

"Mi deh pon di fence. Honestly, mi nuh mek up mi mind if mi fi vote or mi nah vote because the two a dem a the same thing," the 23-year-old said.

Whichever way the ballots swing, both youth voters insisted they want more jobs from the party that makes up the next government.