This Is Guernsey

By Nick Mann

BERNARD Flouquet lost out in the race for chief minister for the third time yesterday. His sights are now set on the Public Services ministry.

Deputy Flouquet (pictured) ran for the chief minister post in both 2004 and 2007. This time he lost out in the last round of voting to Deputy Lyndon Trott.

‘I’m very pleased for Deputy Trott and he won that by a good margin,’ said Deputy Flouquet. ‘It’s my third attempt. I don’t think I will be trying again. This could be my last term in government anyway, but we will see how things pan out.’

He was pleased with the number of candidates who had put themselves forward for the job.

‘It goes to show there’s a lot of enthusiasm to head government and indeed those who now aspire to go into the Policy Council. I’m sure Deputy Trott will choose a good team of people.’

He hoped there would be room for him among them.

The previous term had been marred by divisions and Deputy Trott is keen to move away from that.

‘I’m hopeful that we can put the past behind us. I will lend my support to him to assist doing that. I’m sure everyone in the States will do likewise,’ said Deputy Flouquet.

He was seconded by Deputy Charles Parkinson and there was some optimism both before and during the voting that the campaign would be successful.

Indeed momentum appeared to be with Deputy Flouquet by the fourth round of voting, but come the sixth round he needed to pick up all the eight votes from Deputy Al Brouard’s camp to win – he secured only three of them.

His partnership with Deputy Parkinson was designed to appeal to those who wanted to bring the zero-10 and zero-20 camps together.

‘My style of leadership allows respect for all shades of opinion and only then strong support for the consensus line,’ said Deputy Flouquet during his five-minute speech to the House.