Liberal Party, Mr. Charles Jeffers is unable to vote in the August 15 Independence referendum.

The former NLP and Progressive Labour Party candidate was caught out by one of his oldest grievances -- Bermuda's requirement for annual voter registration.

Having lived eight years in Canada while keeping a home on the Island, Mr.

Jeffers returned to Bermuda the same day the Parliamentary Register to be used for the referendum was closed.

With computers to help track which Bermudians are eligible to vote, annual registration and the closing of the register should be "a thing of the past'', Mr. Jeffers told The Royal Gazette . If he could vote, Mr. Jeffers said there was no doubt in which box he would place his mark. He wholeheartedly supports Independence and expressed surprise at the referendum boycott call from his former PLP colleagues.

Nearly all young people one day decide to leave home, Mr. Jeffers said. If they stayed with their parents, they could do well financially, but "where would our self-worth be? Where would our self-esteem be? "You can't buy those with money.'' And Mr. Jeffers felt a referendum was "the best vehicle'' to decide the issue.

There were problems with deciding by way of a general election.

Jeffers favours Independence "If you get the situation where one party may be supporting Independence and the other may not, I may want one party to be the Government, but I may not agree with their view on Independence,'' he said.

He favoured isolating Independence as "a clear issue''.

But it bothered him that if given a "yes'' vote, the United Bermuda Party Government would try to rush Independence through before the next general election.

Mr. Jeffers, who was a PLP candidate in Pembroke West Central in 1983 and an NLP candidate in Pembroke East Central in 1985, introduced the Canadian Scholarship Trust Plan to Bermuda in 1969 and later moved to the head office of its Canadian marketing arm.

He returned to Bermuda this summer and is now associate enrolment director with the Heritage International Scholarship Trust Plan.

Mr. Gilbert Darrell, 72, who has led the NLP since it was born from a split in the PLP in 1984, announced in December that he is stepping down. Mr. Jeffers has said he would accept the leadership if that was the party's wish, though public support for the NLP generally would also be a factor.

Mr. Jeffers, who had a copy of Government's Green Paper on Independence sent to him in Toronto, said Bermuda was in a much better position to break its colonial ties than many countries which had done so earlier.

"We've had self-government for years,'' he said. "We've controlled most of our affairs.'' In the few remaining areas which Bermuda did not handle, "why is it that we have to have somebody else making our decisions?'' International companies were worried about stability, not Independence. "Why should Independence suddenly make Bermuda unstable?'' he asked.

"There's a thing called self-fulfilling prophecy.'' Bahamas had many problems after Independence because it tried to do too much too quickly. Since then, "they have rebuilt, and look what's happened''.

Mr. Jeffers said he did "not understand what the real problem is''.

In 1972, Britain abolished the "sterling area'' without notice, leaving Bermuda out in the cold, he noted. "Bermudians made the decision to align ourselves with the US dollar.'' And in 1983, a new British nationality law made Bermudians no longer British subjects but "British Dependent Territories Citizens''. The move affected Bermudian blacks more than whites, because many Bermudian whites had parents or grandparents born in Britain.

"Are we dependent on Britain?'' he asked. "We got charged $1.7 million when we had those troops come and spend time at Warwick Camp and relax.'' In the event of outside aggression today, "we would be protected by the Americans whether we liked it or not''.

Most Bermudian blacks did not feel allegiance to Britain, Mr. Jeffers said.

"The majority of my bosses in the '50s and '60s were guys from Britain, and a lot of them didn't treat us very nice.'' Independence would bring Bermudians together under a common citizenship. He said the Country should have its own flag and national anthem. As for "God Save the Queen'', Mr. Jeffers said: "She's a lovely lady, and I hope He saves her, but that song is saying nothing about the people. I want to talk about Bermuda.''