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I am writing about the situation of Permanent Resident Card (PRC) holders in Bermuda, who are denied the right to vote and thus, are denied the right to fully participate in society.

A PRC entitles the holder to live and work in Bermuda without the need for a work permit, but does not give them the right to participate in parliamentary elections.

Obtaining a PRC is by no means an easy thing to achieve. The individual must have lived continuously on the island for at least 20 years and remained an upstanding member of the community. There are many countries where permanent residents, who are not citizens, have the right to vote; examples include Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada, Antigua, Barbuda, and the U.K., New Zealand, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Guyana, each with their own residence requirements.

... PRC holders have made and continue to make a significant contribution to the community through their work, their involvement in community organisations, and overall, the contribution to the growth of the Bermudian economy. This contribution is by no means a fleeting one. They have spent over 20 years making Bermuda their home.

The current Government will argue that by giving PRC holders the right to vote, you would be opening the floodgates to more and more individuals being eligible for gaining this right, and this would somehow disadvantage Bermudians. Firstly, given restrictions now in place on work permit lengths, it is unlikely that many individuals will have the slightest chance of staying in Bermuda for the requisite 20 years to obtain permanent residency. Secondly, PRC holders already have the right to live and work in Bermuda, therefore giving them the right to vote does not put any further pressure on the housing market or lend itself to any of the xenophobic rhetoric concerning foreigners 'taking away' jobs from Bermudians. Therefore, the only significant impact would be that PRC holders would have the opportunity to participate in the democratic process. The current Government would argue that this would somehow dilute the voting right of Bermudians. Yet, looking at the numbers, the number of PRC holders is about five per cent of the voting population (2,000/42,000), which is just more than a fifth of the voting population who didn't participate in the past election of December 2007, (which roughly had a 76 per cent participation rate). PRC holders should have the right to hold the government accountable. They are not simply guests on the islands; they have been contributing members of society for over 20 years!

It is an embarrassment that the Bermuda Government cannot afford these hardworking and well-deserving individuals one of the basic human rights of participation. Many of these individuals have made Bermuda their one and only home, and don't have a right to vote anywhere else in the world. ...Many of these PRC holders have children whom were born in Bermuda, whom after their 18th birthday received Bermudian status, affording them the right to vote.  

Giving PRC holders the right to vote is about giving them the respect and dignity that they deserve, to be able to actively participate in the democratic processes that they have helped to build, and that they have called home for more than twenty years.

I therefore ask you to take action in order to provide Bermuda PRC holders with the right to participate in parliamentary elections, so that they are no longer made to feel like second-class citizens.

Jonathan Suter

Southampton

 

  

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