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Monday, November 16, 2009
IT is said that every citizen of Jamaica has the right to exercise his democratic, if not constitutional right, by voting in elections if he chooses to.
However, that is not the case with the director of elections or the independent members of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (EOJ), as Jamaican laws bar them from marking that important 'X'.
Former director of elections Danville Walker, who is now commissioner of customs, has never voted in an election of any form in Jamaica.
But all that will change soon, as Walker is now qualified to do so.
"I am finally on the voter's list. It's the first time I've been on a voter's list in Jamaica," Walker told the Observer in a recent interview.
<span style="font-weight: bold">"I was 50 years old recently and I have never voted in a Jamaican election,</span> and so I am looking forward to the next election for the first time in my life, to walk into a polling station just to cast my ballot," said Walker, who revealed that he had contributed to history last year.
"<span style="font-weight: bold">The first and only person I have ever voted for in my life was Barack Obama. It is amazing," said Walker who, along with his Jamaican citizenship, also holds a United States passport.</span>
Although he has left the Electoral Office, and does not miss the every day grind that is attached to that organisation, Walker has not given up on playing a role in upcoming elections, as part of the local election-monitoring group Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE).
"In the next election I would love to work as a CAFFE observer, but I don't know if my application will be approved. That's what I want to do," he said.
Although Walker was of the age when his first opportunity to vote arose, he declined to exercise his franchise as a mark of protest.
"As a soldier in the JDF (Jamaica Defence Force), it was so political in the 1980 election that I decided that I wasn't going to even register to vote.
"After that I decided to live in the States and when I returned I was director of elections, so I could not vote again, because directors of elections and the independent members on the commission have to be removed from the voter's list if they were on it and they cannot vote.
"During the last time I spent with the EOJ some people were saying how I became political, but they had no idea how non-political I was. My thing is I work for my country and I don't care who is running the country," he said.
He described his job as commissioner of customs as taxing and stressful and nowhere compared to what he did at the Electoral Office.
"Customs is like an election everyday. I get up each day and the first thing I do is look at all the appointments that I have for the day. Sometimes I have two appointments at the same time, because I need to see both persons and there is nowhere else to put them, so I have to see them.
"What is stressful about it too is that you always have to be dealing with money. So I am thinking about customs from I wake up. Usually my staff is getting e-mails from me up to midnight and as early as 4:00 o'clock in the morning. I make sure all my managers have BlackBerry (cellular) phones, so they get their e-mails from me immediately and they can converse with me at any time on Messenger. I need to be able to reach my managers at any time and I believe that if you have a Customs phone, it must be on at all times. If it is turned off, you don't need to have it," Walker said.
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