Political parties urged to focus attention on uncommitted voters

 

With the date of the general election expected to be announced this Sunday, one political commentator is calling for the two major parties to focus their campaigns on uncommitted voters. 

 

Germaine Barrett said the election will likely be decided by which party can win over that key group. 

 

Mr. Barrett also urged politicians to shift the mindset of some uncommitted voters who see politics more as a means of personal gain than public service.

 

"I was having a conversation yesterday with an uncommitted voter and she say until Andrew [Holness] or Mark [Golding] for that matter, can give me block and steel and concrete and so forth to expand my house, mi nah vote fi either of them. And there is a way in which both political parties have to convey to Jamaicans at large, that politics can't be so directly transactional," he contended. 

 

"Politics is transactional to the extent that you vote for the party that has provided for you the best value and the best quality of performance. But in terms of the kind of pork barrel politics, that has to go, and I think that's a part as well of what is causing a lot of persons to remain uncommitted at this time," the political commentator reasoned. 

 

Mr. Barrett was a guest Thursday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106FM.