Dear Editor,

On reading an article in the Observer of Monday, November 5, 2013 that Jamaican born Mark Escoffery-Bey is vying to become president of the Bronx borough, with its almost 1.5 million population, I could not but be reminded of the nonsense that prevails here, where persons born in the USA cannot represent our tiny constituencies without first revoking their American citizenship.

This became an issue in the 2011 General Election, and one would have thought we would have looked at this discriminatory constitutional provision by now; discriminatory because it prevents younger Jamaican-born persons who take up US citizenship — as opposed to the older generation who migrated mainly to England and became English citizens — to return to serve their country as dual citizens.

On the other hand, Commonwealth citizens, even those who have never lived here for more than a year, are welcomed with open arms to become constituency representatives and even prime minister, without having to give up anything.

It is time this 50-year-old provision be reworked, one way or the other; either to keep out all aliens or level the playing field. One would have thought that the JLP, which was the party that suffered most because of this discriminator constitutional requirement, would have got off their bottoms to mobilise the citizens to have this requirement changed to give Jamaicans a better and a wider choice in candidate selection. But, history considered, I must have been dreaming to have expected the JLP to really fight for progressive change.

Joan E Williams

Kingston 10

gratestj@gmail.com