Dear Editor,

I set my pen to paper with not only tears in my eyes but with fear in my heart and grave disappointment with my country’s outlook.

I have always supported the People’s National Party (PNP) because of its social ideologies. Simply put, if it were not for Michael Manley, quite frankly, I would have no idea where I would be today, or where my parents would have ended up.

The cause of my discontent is how my beloved party is treating its youngest and most potent members. Lisa Hanna, Damion Crawford and Raymond Pryce are among some of the brightest minds in politics. They are the ones I want to take charge when these aging politicians take their final bow.

Hanna, for example, is a young politician with one of the largest rural constituency in Jamaica and is also the minister with responsibility for a portfolio that continues to make great strides in the three areas it caters to: children, youth and culture. The work she has done and continues to do is admirable, it is politicians like her who give me some form of hope despite the high levels of crime and violence and the rapidly deteriorating dollar.

I am only 25 years old and these are the people that give me, and thousands of other young people, something to hold on to. It is they who cause us to still believe in Jamaica’s electoral process. The PNP should not lose sight of the fact that if it loses its young people then it has already lost the upcoming election. Why are our young people so silent on this matter?

Are we not attuned to what is happening in our country? The truth is, if Lisa Hanna, Raymond Pryce and Damion Crawford are pushed out it is a clear sign that all of us, as young people, are being pushed out too.

Tasha Smith

purple_rain4u2@yahoo.com