THE BATTLE is on today to capture the hearts of young Jamaican voters and have the results reflected in the ballot box.

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) affiliate, Generation 2000 (G2K), has said it has done more to convince young voters on the airwaves, while the People's NationalParty Youth Organisation (PNPYO) said the PNP has won the hearts of those constituents.

Andrew Okola, president of the PNPYO, told a Gleaner Editors' Forum that the PNP has done a "wonderful job of impressing young persons," and this will be manifested on election day.

"Eighty per cent of the crowd I see at the PNP gatherings represent young people," Okola said.

Comfortably satisfied

G2K General Secretary Colin Virgo countered, saying he is "comfortably satisfied" with the response the JLP has been getting from young persons across the country.

Despite maintaining that there is a general apathy towards voting by young people, the G2K's deputy general secretary, Amoy Bernard, said the majority of those who will vote today will vote for the JLP.

She conceded that a significant portion of people leaning to the JLP in the 18-35 age group are not registered to vote, but said the party had done enough work to feel comfortable with the constituency.

Meanwhile, Okola, has rubbished these claims, saying the PNP will be winning the youth vote.

"We are certain about the young persons between 18-25. We can say that based on our political work they will be supporting the People's National Party," the PNPYO president said.

Voter apathy

A Gleaner-commissioned Bill Johnson poll in March found that the PNP was the most favoured party in the 18-24 age group, with 22 per cent of young voters saying they would support the party. Fifteen per cent said they would vote for the JLP. Forty-two per cent said they were not registered to vote.

While dismissing the claim of voter apathy among most youth against the background that a recent poll predicted voter turnout as high as 78 per cent, president of the PNP Women's Movement, Jennifer Edwards, said there is no debate as to whom the women of Jamaica will be supporting.

"Women are not caught in the same uncertainty as the youths. We are very clear as to where our preference and our loyalty is," Edwards declared, pointingto the Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller-led PNP.