[Leica] Resident WAS Belgium (WAS: New topic - what makes "it" newsworthy?)

[jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)]

Daniel,
That is a weird one. I thought citizens never lose their right to vote.
Cheers
Jayanand

On Jan 12, 2008 7:40 PM, Daniel Ridings <dlridings@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Jan 12, 2008 12:10 PM, Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand@gmail.com> wrote:
> > In the meantime non
> > - citizens of Indian origin have been issued a PIO (Persons of Indian
> > Origin) card, which entitles them to practically all benefits, including
> > entry as a resident, i.e. without visas (which is usually all people
> want),
> > except that they are not allowed to vote.
>
> Jayanand,
>
> That sounds like the situation in Sweden before dual citizenship was
> allowed, with a slight difference.
>
> I had permanent residency. I never applied for it, but they got tired
> of seeing me every 6 months and just gave it to me. That's another
> story if anyone is interested.
>
> With permanent residency I had almost all benefits of citizenship
> except I couldn't vote in parliamentary elections. I could vote in
> local (county) elections, but not on the national level. That suited
> me just fine.
>
> Denmark is different.
>
> A lot of Danes move from Denmark to Malm?, just across the water. It
> only takes them 20 minutes to get to downtown Copenhagen from where
> they live in Sweden. They move there because Denmark (probably the
> most reactionary country in Europe) does not allow its citizens to
> marry with non-Danes until they are of a certain age (24? 25? 26?).
>
> So Danes that fall in love outside the Danish norms move to Sweden
> where their marriages are recognized.
>
> But in doing so, the Danish citizens lose their right to vote. So they
> can work and pay taxes in Denmark, but they can't sleep with whoever
> they want or vote.
>
> Such is life.
>
> Daniel
>
>
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