MOST islanders want island-wide voting, according to an official questionnaire.
However, the States Assembly and Constitution Committee has chosen to ignore the most favoured option and instead intends to recommend the second most popular of the four in a consultation paper.
The document has been labelled the most successful ever by chairman Ivan Rihoy, who said that islanders’ preference for island-wide voting would be listened to, but more work would be done on its method of implementation.
‘The response we have received is the greatest any department has ever had,’ said Deputy Rihoy (pictured) yesterday.
The committee has decided, but not unanimously, to recommend a system under which all 45 States seats are voted for on an island-wide basis in one day.
But more people favoured an option under which there would be 10 parish deputies, one from each, and all other deputies would be elected island-wide for a four-year term
SACC principal officer David Robilliard said: ‘3,676 forms were returned showing the views of 6,837 individuals, which equates to 14% of the population aged 16 and over.
‘Of those islanders who responded, it showed about 82% favoured island-wide voting in one form or another.’
- Read the full story in the Guernsey Press. See below for subscription details.
Article posted on 5th January, 2010 - 2.29pm
48 Article Comments
“But more people favoured ………would be 10 parish deputies, one from each, and all other deputies would be elected island-wide for a four-year term”
Our poll came up with the same results.
http://www.ifcfeed.com/articles/detail.aspx?articleid=2281&categoryid=4
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This proposal lacks common sense – which for me is a shame, as I generally favour island wide voting.
How can we, the electorate, be reasonably expected to choose 45 candidates out of a pool of many more?
The sheer time, effort and memory skills required to read dozens and dozens of manifestos, study their content and make an informed choice renders this system unworkable.
What if we have a specific issue we want to ask our candidates? What about the hustings? Not to mention the problems potential deputies will have knocking on every door in the island….or us poor residents having about 100 different people knocking on our door asking for our vote!
I can see this system favouring the well known, whereas those up and coming politicians won’t stand a chance.
I personally favour a party political system. It may have many flaws, but I think it gives the voter a greater say in who they elect, and the policies they support.
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Paul
In a liberal democracy party political system can’t be imposed – they evolve. Someone has to create the first party. And then someone else has to create an opposing party.
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Neil’s comment is spot-on: political parties must evolve and cannot be imposed by government.
The absence of political parties in Guernsey is central to any consideration of the merits of island-wide (or jurisdiction-wide) voting.
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Many people, including myself, did not reply to the survey because none of the options were of any appeal. Paul Le Page is right about the preferred proposal lacking commonsense and being totally unworkable. Just what we would expect such an inept committee to propose I suppose.
None of the options should be put forward and SACC should go back to the drawing board and come up with some sensible ideas. Incredible that SACC are proposing an option supported by just 4% of the population aged 16 and over and an option which wasn’t even the preferred option of those who voted.
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Island wide voting must come, but when? The number of candidates that anyone may be allowed to vote for may be limited to say ten or even seven candidates maximum. Which does n,t mean that you have to vote for more than one if you so wish. The outcome of this, will reveil the true feelings for the elected candidates,with the last few scraping in with only a handful of votes compared with those at the top. Those with the highest number will be seen as the most suitable for the most senior posts
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Paul, the main answer to your point is we don’t need 45 deputies!! It is a ridiculous number for an island the size of Guernsey.
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Fair comment Neil.
I wonder though if a change to island-wide voting will be the catalyst that brings party politics to Guernsey?
I could certainly see it evolving if this recommendation is implemented, as it just don’t think island wide voting for 45 individuals would work for the reasons I made above.
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It is so easy to think up all manner of problems that could arise. Of course it must be made as simple as possible and there are proposals on the table to make the process entirely feasible. Of course it is clear there will be difficulties like any new process but they must be tackled with the objective in mind. It is infinitely desirable for each and every one of us to have a full say in who populates the States of Deliberation and, hopefully, positions of responsibility therein. The present system of separate minipolls by parish, plays lip service to democracy. It permits the most undesirable and low polled individuals to gain entry to the States and take up the highest positions when most of the Islands’ voters have been excluded. IWV must not be allowed to founder.
If we still end up with rubbish, and I doubt it, then at least it will have been by our hand.
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Maybe Deputy Matt F can answer this. SACC put out a consultation an island wide voting. The reponses stated a preference yet the Committee appear to ignore it.
Setting aside personal beliefs on whether the parish system or a version of IWV is appropriate. What was the point in consulting the public and then, effectively, ignoring them?
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Yes Neil .What is the point? The big problem is -nobody wants to either listen or be told!
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Neil,
I’ll do my best, as a member of the Committee, to answer the point in your 2:18pm post.
First, it was a consultation exercise designed to help inform the Committee’s deliberations prior to presenting final policy proposals to the States. Had the intention been to delegate the decision lock, stock and barrel to the public, we may have organised a referendum rather than a consultative questionnaire.
Incidentally, about 86 of every 100 people of voting age chose not to take part. Of the 6,837 individuals that responded, 31.2% preferred option A (one deputy per parish and all others elected island-wide), 30.7% preferred option B (all elected island-wide in one go, which is the option the Committee seems set to propose to the States), 20.2% preferred option C (all elected, but half every two years rather than all in one go), 16.9% preferred option D (the status quo), and 1% declared no particular preference.
By my calculations, 0.06% of the voting age population of the island (fewer than one in a thousand) preferred option A to option B. Meanwhile, added together, the two options that included all deputies being elected island-wide with no direct parish or district representation at all (B and C) were supported by 50.9% of respondents.
Is not the overwhelming conclusion of the consultation that conceptually island-wide voting remains very popular, but that in practical terms there is no real consensus publicly about which method should be adopted?
Anyhow, in view of the above, I don’t think it’s fair to assume that the Committee has ignored responses received from the public during the consultation exercise. I can also confirm that the full range of opinion expressed by the public in the questionnaire is represented among the five members of the Committee.
And it should be remembered that the Committee is tasked only with presenting proposals. The final decision rests with the States of Deliberation, which can approve, reject or amend the Committee’s recommendations as it sees fit. The detailed results of the consultation have been made public and are obviously available to all States members to inform them in the decision-making process later in the year.
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Matt
All pollsters suffer the same problem. All polls should really be prefaced with “Those that are likely to respond to a survey thing x about x subject”.
An election is a poll. Legitimately we could use your percentage arguments against elections. That circular argument is, in my view, futile so I tend to accept that polling is imperfect – as is any democratic election.
I’ll accept that your consultation was not a referendum and therefore you were not bound to the results. But I’m still unclear of the point of any ‘consulting’ process.
We seem very quick to roll in “UK consultants” accepting their recommendations on all manner of subjects. But it strikes me as rather strange that in an open consultation to the People of Guernsey on their system of government; their recommendations are not accepted.
For what it’s worth I didn’t agree with the results in our poll or your consultation: but as a democrat I have to accept them; I’d argue that as a Deputy you have to also.
Democracy can be a bitch Matt
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Neil,
But, playing devil’s advocate for a moment, which “result” should be binding?
That around 5% of the voting age population preferred option A; that a majority of respondents wanted all deputies elected island-wide and none in parishes or districts, which was inconsistent with option A; that 86% of the voting age population chose to express no preference; that 51.4% of respondents did not want all deputies elected island-wide at one single election; or that 31.2% did?
I do think the consultation exercise has provided valuable information and will help shape the Committee’s final proposals. However, I don’t think it’s reasonable to accuse anyone of being anti-democratic should they choose to support a system other than option A – after all, around 95% of the voting age population didn’t choose to express their support for that option either.
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There could be a 100 would be deputies; but the cause of the trouble is not allowing Island wide voting and at least 2 party voting.
In case they haven’t noticed it’s 2010, not 1900.
The only way there will discussion, is where at least a two party ruling body.
As it is now there is no choice, they States are bullet headed and think like cassius, they think
“We’re the best” Cassius had it right, this Guernsey States are all losers, or is it fear that at last the ordinary man and woman will have right on their side.
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Mr. Fallaize
Where the statistics are involved on this subject they are certainly open to discussion. But your interpretation of the numbers and your explanation of the breakdown of figures does beg the question. If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with b*******. No wonder this assembly is considered a laughing stock.
Give it a rest you are not doing your self any favours.
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AJ – why do we have to vote for even one ? If we don’t like any of the candidates we have the right not to vote for any of them.
The problem is that blank ballot papers are always lumped in with spoiled papers – not treated as an important statistic in their own right ..
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I think Matt Fallaize’s conclusion is about right. Island wide voting is clearly supported, although the public is split on the mechanics.
That’s certainly my view. I didn’t particularly like any of the options given on the consultation, as I thought most of them were practically unworkable in the current system. Nevertheless, I 100% support island wide voting as a concept, and I hope that as time goes on we can find a solution that will allow us to implement it.
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Bigboy:
Sorry that you do not approve of my participation in this debate. I was really trying only to demonstrate the point you make early in your post – that the statistics are open to a great deal of interpretation.
Paul Le P:
From a practical perspective, would you agree that the most viable way of introducing island-wide voting would be to elect only a proportion of the Assembly at any one time?
For example, deputies could continue to serve a four-year term with annual elections for one-quarter of the seats [approx. 11]. Or the number of deputies could be reduced by nine to 36, each serving a six-year term with biennial elections for one-third of the seats [12].
Clearly, these options present fewer practical problems than electing 45 island-wide all at the same time. However, there would be significant disadvantages, including: the possibility of greater voter fatigue, a lack of continuity and stability in policy-making, more frequent ‘electioneering’, and abolition of the concept of a ‘general election’ where theoretically the public has the chance to kick out one government and elect a wholly different replacement.
Whenever island-wide voting is considered, the most-common comment one hears is “there must be a system to do it”. But given the general support that exists for the concept, the absence of any political or public consensus whatsoever is quite striking.
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“However, I don’t think it’s reasonable to accuse anyone of being anti-democratic”
My last paragraph was clumsy; I wasn’t intending to be that pointed. Damn these forums.
But on your percentage arguments take any of the current Ministers that can work in favour of IWV my friend.
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And forgive the continued posting of this document but here are the results of the poll we conducted before the last election. Each respondent was given 20 votes.
Opens immediately as a PDF
http://www.submarine.gg/IslandWideResults.pdf
Things to consider in your debate.
- Some of the candidates may not have stood had this really been and Island Wide election
- More “names” would likely to have stood had this been an Island Wide election.
In short, in my view, and IWV system would have vastly different candidate dynamics.
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Matt Fallaize – The lack of consensus comes I think because the current Guernsey political system of consensus government and voting for individuals makes island wide voting practically impossible. I don’t think one can look at IW voting in isolation – it needs to come as part of a complete review of the machinery of government.
For one, I personally agree with a previous poster who suggests we have too many Deputies in the house. Cutting the amount of deputies would help – however it wouldn’t stop people standing for election. The same could equally be said for the process of electing 1/4 of the house bi-annually. This means that we could simply have the same number of people going for a smaller amount of seats.
The only option would be to restrict the amount of candidates that can stand. Although some might justifiably argue this would impede democracy, I cannot see any other way that IW voting in a general election could work practically. I personally think that we definitely need a general election, not partial elections – for reasons you have put in your post.
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Island Wide Voting is a bit like having honesty boxes as a system of payment in supermarkets – a nice idea but totally unworkable and impractical. However it’s organised it’ll simply end up as a lottery with a whole bunch of useless populist politicians who promise the earth getting the nod over those who are prepared to make real hard decisions. Unless anyone can convince me otherwise?
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Martino – I like the idea of island wide voting conceptually. I must confess though that I have yet to see, or think up, a viable method for making it work. None of the options in the consultancy document were practical – in fact some were down right daft.
Until such time as I, or someone else, can think of a solution I have to agree with you. It’s a good idea in principle, but unworkable in practice.
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The interesting facts of the IW survey is that of the 14% of the population, that filled out the questionnaire. It was that 82% wanted Island wide voting and not the present system Option D.
I was one of the ones who filled it out and want IWV and some of my family, did not fill it out but also want this.
Just because some people(86%) did not fill it out do not say they were not interested and are happy with the statos quo.
If they had been forced by law (l would be against doing this), l believe the result would have been again 86% in favor of IWV.
It would be democratic to have the wishes of the electors listened and adhered to for once.
As for those people saying it would be to difficult.
Does anybody think that people would use all 47 votes. Just finding 10 that l wished to vote for would not be easy.
It always easy to use statistics, but the one statistic is that, the electorate where promised IWV for the 2012 elections.
Be honest and stick to this States members.
Some of you will remember the Harwood report,and in that report 72% wanted the Parish Representative kept.
An ex Deputy friend of yours Matt, did l believe a very undemocratic move and made sure the new law did not go though, after the old one had been taken out.
I am not a Donkey for nothing.
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MARTINO
You are absolutely spot on it will be a lottery. I have lived and voted in St. Peter Port for the past 20 odd years. Before they split the parish in half we had up to 12 votes and usually 20 odd candidates. The norm was we use to get all the rubbish that could not get elected in their own parish come and take their chances in Town.
So if you look back at previous results normally the top 4 places would be taken with votes around the 1800-2400 mark. Followed by the sympathy votes for the others anywhere from 800 upwards. So yes lottery is the right word. If you can only elect douzeniers who live in the parish why not the same with Deputies.
Cut the number of deputies in the States,who can only stand in their own parish. Then possibly people will realise that we have got to go for the best, and hopefully and wishful thinking it might cancel out the rubbish that gets elected. Island wide populist elections are certainly not the way forward as that word lottery springs to mind yet again. Mark my words you go down that road the system can only get a lot worse.
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I presume [maybe wrongly] that Dave Gorvel is refering to me. If so I would be interested in knowing what my alleged “undemocratic actions” were?
It is true that I voted against bringing in a new form of parish deputy where only members of the douzaine would be eligible to stand for office. I made no secret that I would vote against this from the moment such an office was first mooted. Far from being “undemocratic” I was opposing a profoundly undemocratic office being created. If we are to have parish deputies then the electers of the parish must be free to chose who they want to represent them. The idea that they should be limited to a slate of only 12 – only one of which may have any desire to serve in the States – is risable.
I voted against this nonsense as I had made clear I would and a majority of States Members agreed. What is so undemocratic about that? Are you really suggesting that parish representatives in the States where eligibility is limited to members of the douzaine is a good, sound, democratic idea?
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It was 73% of the people polled wanted to the new Parish Representative system and in Jerseys Crosiers Review 80% wanted that retained.
My understanding was that anybody in the parish, could put their name forward for Parish Representative.
Is this true?
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In the same manner, I don’t see why it should be the case of a few hundred people being able to foist hugely unpopularist folks like Trott and Flouquet onto the general public.
The least we could do is have every candidate answering the same questions in their manifesto. Reading some random and vague jibberish, as is the case every time, some sort of vetting is needed. It would mean the election process in stages, I suppose.
Either that or enforced ‘camps’. Multiple choice questions and “if you scored 20 or more, wear the colour blue” “if 30 or more, purple” like in the women’s mags I read avidly.
Then that could be applied as a rough ‘guide’. Even so, nothing will ever get away from the ‘character’ based opinion. It’s how Blair managed for so long and why Brown isn’t managing. Regardless of substance the usual candidates will score better than those who have less ‘personality’ but more ’sense’. Part and parcel.
No, we cannot stay parochial. I disagree entirely with the notion that it serves the island’s interest best. That’s not to say they should lose a connection to a proportion of representation, it’s just at the last vote to be considered for membership of the states, it should be done island wide.
If that means 10 IWV, then that’s ten more democratically elected members than we have now.
If, then, the island chooses say, Flouquet, over a dead body, then so be it. I couldn’t complain.
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What are you trying to say Arnald?
The utter impracticality of IWV will ensure that the outcome is much less democratic that that afforded by the current system.
You may as well put all the names into a big revolving canister and get local celebs like Dave Gorvel and Rodney Brouard to draw the winners out one by one. A ridiculous, deeply flawed, undemocratic lottery.
IWV stands for: Idiots Wanting Votes!
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Martino
What do you call democratic?
80% people did not want zero-10, so it was democratic to impose it, especially as doing it one year early cost us 100million, in loss taxes. Also the cost of new zero-10 laws.
86% of the people want IWV, so we do not do it, because it is more democratic, not do it.
80% of the people do not want an incinerator, but because of democracy it is imposed on us.
As l said on a previous blog. The Harwood report said that 73% wanted the Parish Representative.
We have to decide what is democratic or not, is making sure the minority view is first, right or wrong.
I am concerned that, too many times we as islanders are being side stepped, for the self interested.
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Martino
We are the size of a small UK town.
At the moment I have 7 votes to use against the names of perhaps 15 candidates. Out of that list I support none of them to represent me. It means that in order to have fulfilled my democratic duty I must use one vote at least on a candidate that I do not believe will serve the island as a representative of a portion of my political opinion.
They then go on to vote for positions of political power.
Couple that with the fact that there is no weighting given to the most voted for candidates and you get a system that cannot statistically represent anything like the voting intentions of the island. It is luck if it does.
I have to be able to use a vote FOR something, and if I don’t have representation, my abstention must then at least be on the entire process.
I’m not saying the parish vote shouldn’t happen. I think that the top voted candidates should then be candidates in an IWV to determine a shortlist for any ‘top jobs’. At parish level they should make it clear if they have that ambition, so a ‘reserve’ can step in at the IWV stage.
Then at least we would have people in prominent roles that would be the most supported by a bigger percentage of the population, and the final selection could be done as it is now with the knowledge that the pattern of the horse-trades has been influenced by the people.
Of course if many candidates from the off do not have the ambition to be in a role where they have some influence, then you will still get those ‘big characters’ in the running, but it would give a chance for the most popular from the parishes to put their views out to tender to a wider audience. Maybe then, as some of the ‘big characters’ are marginilised, then they would form a more coherent opposition, and therefore a more democratic debate on policy.
Presently, it is very difficult for an apathetic electorate to be engaged, as our politics is run by a majority who they could have no influence over anyway. If we want people to stop grumbling so much, they need to feel that at least they tried to get someone who is on ‘their side’ into the mix.
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Arnald
Strangely I find myself in agreement with your views here. The only thing I would add is that the best politicians are not always the most popular ones. Those who have had to make tough yet unpopular decisions for the good of the island may not be the most popular at the next election as they pay the price for making tough, unpopular, but correct decisions. Its probably quite easy for somebody to make all the right noises and top the polls, but be totally unsuitable for a senior job. One or two spring to mind straight away (Eric Walters and John Gollop are prime examples). Whoever has held the position of Treasury Minister in recent times is bound to struggle at the polls, as raising taxes will always be unpopular.
I prefer the current system of parish voting to elect the deputies, but feel that once that process has been completed the Policy Council should somehow be elected by island wide vote. We also don’t need 45 deputies. 30 is sufficient for an island of this size. An assembly of 10 Ministers, 20 other paid deputies and 10 voluntary douzeniers seems to me to be a more appropriate structure.
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Indeed, David.
Would Mr Gollop put himself forward to be nominated as a present-day CM type role, however?
That aside, the main thrust has to be a democratic contract ensuring that the public have had a say on who has prominence in whatever system is adopted. Without party politics, which is understandably considered unwieldy for Guernsey, then parochial elections based on a brief resume of a vague political sentiment cannot ensure that those chosen candidates will offer representation on actual policy, of a joined-up vision.
Continuing as we are can only lead to more political disenfranchisement, lower turnouts and more persistent anti-everything grumblings. We need more politics and less single issue wrangling. No better time whilst we become more cash strapped.
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Arnald, I have sympathy with many of the points you make but the big difference between us and a UK town is that we don’t have party politics, so however you end up organising it IWF is going to end up as a circus and a lottery as 100-plus ‘independent’ candidates make an undignified scramble for (as it stands) 47 available seats.
I also agree that our general election system should be divorced from parish pump politics, so we should establish new electoral districts with roughly equal populations and reduce the number of deputy seats to 30 – either six electoral districts with five seats each or five with seat seat each.
At the same time there should be a single Alderney seat in the Guernsey States based on the fact that their population is 30 times smaller than ours. As things stand Alderney is over represented in the Guernsey assembly.
Dave Gorvel, first I do not accept that 80 per cent of Guernsey electors want IWF. The survey was carried out in an unscientific and flawed way. Even if 80 per cent do want something that does not make it right. We’d probably still have the death penalty if the tyranny (idiocy in the case of IWV) of the majority dictated how things were run on this island.
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Can I humbly suggest that IWV would work if
1 the present districts remain, but
2 voters are allowed to write in the names of up to, say, three candidates from other districts and allocate votes to these candidates.
That way the ballot paper would be of reasonable size (about 14 names) but people who are motivated to vote for someone “Island wide” could do so. Similarly, candidates could concentrate on one district or spread their efforts Island wide. A little more complicated during the counting but perfectly workable.
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Toby, the point I was trying to make is this .If for instance there are seven seats available gor instance on a committee, then there are many voters who, allthough wishing to sellect only three good candidates, inevitably put down say, an extra four names for some unknown reason, which then allows many of these idiots onto a committee, who would normally not make it
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The trouble with too many times over ruling the majority view, is when does it start to become a dictatorship.
There is always a fine line to cross.
Some people may not agree, but Guernseys States, apart from perhaps the last 12 years of overspending and bad judgements, was l believe relatively well run.
We have been slowly dismantling a system that worked for centuries, it did need change and adjustment, but not to the extent that has happened. Every time we change it and it does not work,the next step takes it closer to British way of government.
We are changing more and more like Britain is run. It may be that so many our Civil servants are trained in the British way.
My opinion is that unlike the politicians of the past, these delegate to the civil service too much.
This is not blaming civil servants, who do a excellent job, but it is the Deputies who should govern and not delegate.
In business you make the right decisions, if not your company will not survive.
If we have less Deputies, it will mean more civil servants more cost and more PR gurus, to tell us” we have never had it so good”.
What we need is more hard working Deputies, doing the job they were elected for and making the right decisions.
One example. We used to have a states committees, that looked after the Guernsey Post, Telecoms and Electric. They were made up of states members and normally an accountant as a non States member. The accountant with attendance allowance, normally was there to look at profit and loss and regulate accordingly.
Now we have an English Quango(OUR), costing £850,000 and trying to ruin these by, making sure off island companies can cream off.
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It is perfectly possible to have an Island wide election for 45 deputies but the whole thing would have to be handled completely differently from the way it is done at the moment. My view is that manifestos could be printed in a 3 page pull out in the Guernsey Press and people would have a month before polling day to go through all the candidates and select the people they believed best served their needs. Instead of candidates walking the whole island canvassing, they would set up shop in a large central hall (Beau Sejour perhaps) for two weeks say and the public would come to them and question the candidates on the detail of their manifesto. This is what happens in many other places without too much trouble. On polling day you would attend your normal polling station and draw your voting slip, where there would be five or six TV screens where touch screen voting would take place, one screen for every electoral district, the candidates would be broken down for the purpose of voting to their electoral districts with the faces of those candidates on each screen, the voter would go along selecting by touching the face of the candidate they wish to serve them, moving from screen to screen until they have voted for as many candidates they wish to choose. At the end of each selection the voter would be asked if they were sure that the selecting they had made was correct if so they would press the vote button and their vote would be electronically recorded. Putting crosses on bits of paper is a method that goes back to the dark ages.
As for party politics, I can tell you now that there are many Deputies and members of the public who remain unconvinced of the value of party politics or the alleged or superiority of executive government. Lets just look at the closest example of a party system, that of the UK. The UK has realistically a two party system, which is a bit like two wolves discussing with a sheep what they are going to have for dinner; there is no real choice for the electorate other than more of the same, either a lurch to the right or left with the third party sniping at both. The people on the other hand have very little influence over the way they are governed once which ever party is elected is in power, and the elected government is often governing the country with a very small percentage of the overall vote.
Of course while we are looking at the UK party system it is important to note that the real power in the UK rests with the powerful lobby groups milling around the corridors of Westminster wining and dining the right MP’s, winning the war of nepotism and sleaze in the UK party system over the interests of the voting public. Democracy is further diminished as most of the decision making process in the UK has now decamped to Brussels so it makes little difference anymore who the British people vote for British MP’s or whatever party can promise anything they like but it is the EU who will decide what they get. A consensus political system such as we have in Guernsey is the purest form of democracy in the world, those who are elected stand on their own beliefs that are openly and transparently presented to the public for them to make up their own minds whether the policies and ideas of an individual will be suitable for the type of government they would like to see. Once elected the Deputy is free to vote on the policies they stood for and which they truly believe in, policies researched with other like minded deputies who they believe will deliver the best for their people.
They are not shackled to a corrupt party system that forces them to follow a party doctrine that is often at times diametrically opposed to what they believe is right as individuals. That is why the party system is inherently dishonest it forces elected members to vote for policies that they do not believe individually but are forced to vote for collectively on party lines. In fact they are whipped into line by the party enforcers and the penalty for disobeying orders is often de-selection.
That kind of blind obedience is what fuels political dishonesty and the general publics distrust of those who say one thing to get elected and then do something else when they get into power simply because their party orders it. Many of the policies of a party system never appear in the party manifesto that brought them to power in the first place, things change very rapidly in the life of a government and they have to act to take account of changing circumstances and none of these sudden changes in direction will have been in the party manifesto. Therefore the public have no idea what sort of government they are likely to get.
Because of the party system, you end up with, the unedifying spectacle of politicians in the UK having what is known as a “safe seat” because of the historic political colour of the geographical area, which is usually defined on class lines, industrial areas of the UK have traditionally voted labour while the stockbroker belt of southern England has been staunchly conservative, with those parties holding onto those seats for generations. No parliamentary seat should be safe and in Guernsey under our system it isn’t, you can be removed by the electorate after four years whatever you’re political beliefs and that seat refilled by someone whom the electorate believe will better represent them, that in my view is true democracy where the people decide your fate, not what party has held on to what seats for decades.
A consensus system also makes it much more difficult for those within government to be corrupted, with a Cabinet or executive system you would only have to patronise or persuade a dozen influential people who make all the decisions of your particular point of view, in order to get government policy changed, powerful factions outside the States could easily through that patronage and nepotism hold huge sway over government policy by offering incentives and hospitality to the right people, so the potential for corruption is huge. It has not gone unnoticed that most of the calls for executive government come from influential local business groups.
However with 45 individuals it is almost impossible for one pressure group or a powerful individual to corrupt an entire government. It is even more important in a small community such as ours that we don’t have an executive government, which would be nothing more than an elected dictatorship. I challenge anyone to show me a party system with cabinet government that is working and which the people are satisfied that it is looking after their best interests. Real democracy means power vested in the hands of the many, not the hands of a few and democracy only really exists when people elect those who govern them. Jersey went for a form of executive government that clearly is not working, since it conception Jersey politics has been in turmoil. With the rest of their elected deputies who are not on the Council of Ministers performing little more than a scrutiny role, a classic case of Deputies elected to govern but not in government.
Guernsey has a system which gives the people government from the bottom up, not the top down, and the real control over policy remains firmly on the floor of the assembly, amongst all those elected by the people, not as in Jersey, behind closed doors by a handful of ministers. One of the arguments put forward by the pro executive group is that with a party based system people would then know for what they were voting, I have seldom heard a bigger distortion of the truth, lets just examine that statement. The British people did not vote to go to war in Iraq, nor did they expect to be cheated out of the promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, nor did they get the opportunity to stop their country being plunged into financial ruin. They didn’t vote for mass immigration or for handing the decision making process to the EU or on MP’s expenses either.
So the idea that democracy is much better served by a party system is inherent nonsense. Executive government is about removing power from the masses into the hands of a few, it is about forcing the wishes of a small political elite onto the electorate bi-passing their elected representatives, a dishonest corrupt system that Guernsey should have no part of. As for the perceived lack of leadership or accountability, anyone looking at the UK at present could not put forward an intelligent argument that this is a country that is being strongly led or that its so called leaders are accountable to the people, so the idea that if you have a party system you get strong accountable leadership is a myth.
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Deputy Jones your post is in three parts. The first regarding IWV offers a solution to how you believe it could work.
The 2nd is about party politics which, with the greatest respect, is largely irrelevant as government doesn’t impose party politics. Party politics evolve from someone creating a party and then someone else creating an opposition party – hey presto – a party system.
The third part espouses the virtues of consensus government over executive.
Just so I’m clear is your position Island Wide Voting of all 45 deputies while retaining consensus system?
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Now that issues of structure of government have been raised, may I offer a point of clarification.
“Consensus” government and “Executive/Cabinet government” are often, incorrectly, postulated as opposite forms of government.
In reality, consensus government means nothing more than government without party politics. So, the opposite of consensus government is government with parties. For the reasons Neil suggests, it is not for the States to determine whether in future government in Guernsey should be by consensus or party-based.
The opposite of cabinet government, at least in the local context, is government by committees. In the former, policies are developed and approved centrally by powerful cabinets, which consist of a minority of members of a parliament. In the latter, as in Guernsey, power is dispersed much more widely because policy is developed by several committees with specific areas of interest and which collectively comprise the vast majority of members of a parliament.
In practice, a cabinet system usually greatly limits the involvement of the full parliament in governing by concentrating much greater power in far fewer hands. In a system of government by committees, as in Guernsey, the legitimacy and authority of all democratically-elected members of the States of Deliberation remains intact.
I wrote a letter to the Press about this a few weeks ago. For those who may be interested, I have attached a link below. It’s about half way down the page.
http://www.thisisguernsey.co.uk/cgibin/discus/discus.cgi?pg=next&topic=11779&page=18605
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Neil
Party politics has been put forward as an idea for Guernsey by several people, I merely point out the flaws of such a system. It is perfectly possible in my view to have an IWE under our present system of government.
One other thing I had an E-mail from someone who said that in an IWE the majority of people wouldn’t know the candidates they are being asked to vote for, my answer is they don’t know them now, apart perhaps the handful that stand in their own electoral district, however the people in the other districts will not know the majority of those standing for seats in the assembly under our present system so there will be very little change in that regard. Much about the way we vote is based on trust, it has been that way for decades, people trusting the parishioners across the Island to vote for a sensible government although they have little say in the majority of candidates.
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These are my personal pros and cons on the subject.
For IWE:
- Each Deputy gets an islandwide mandate
- No more “my votes bigger than yours” from various Deputies
- People less likely to sneak in under the ‘bloody hell, the Castel’s short of a candidate’ phenomenon
- It’s more democratic
- As a voter I can support candidates in other parishes that I think are worthy.
- I can register protest votes against those that aren’t.
- Deputies won’t be able to hide behind their parish foss anymore.
Against:
- Potential for the ‘known’ just to walk in, be that incumbant or other ‘name’.
- It will disincentivise the ground up candidates.
- I’m reasonably sure the IWE is step towards Executive government
- There will be a certain homoginisation of the political class and therefore a creation of a political class
- We have low turn outs of voters at the moment. IWE will disincetivise voters. 80+ candidates?
- Voters wil still vote along parish lines.
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Talk about too much time on your hands. Here is an outstanding example of why our Island is going to ruin. Our elected sit at home all day on more money than most of us and contribute to this forum. I do not need to say anymore than that.
How pathetic!
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@geoff… and your contribution is what exactly?
would you rather they don’t read these forums and engage in debate, the more that get involved the better, they might even take note of whats being said!!
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Geoff
I wasn’t aware our island was “going to ruin” that’s certainly was not Deputy Charles Parkinson’s view of things on Radio Guernsey this morning but then of course he might know slightly more about it than you being Treasury Minister. I work out of two offices myself one at home and one at the Housing Department which I share with my Chief Officer. My job in both cases is to engage with the public and prepare for meetings and States days. I also like many other serving deputies work weekends and late into the night writing letters and other correspondence. On Saturday Deputy Guille and I dealt with parishioners who were in desperate need of some help (a big thank you to Andy Hall from RG Falla for his assistance in that case) on Sunday morning I did the phone in and in the afternoon I dealt with a parishioner who had missed a medical appointment in Southampton because of the snow and a call from one of our tenants on a tenancy matter. This morning I have been I meetings at Housing and Police Headquarters, I have other meetings this afternoon. So if you don’t mind I do occasionally scribble some stuff for the blog.IWV is a serious topic and needs to be discussed with the people properly.
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Dave,
What another waste of time trying to justify how busy you are. You really did not have to try and convince me that you actually do anything. I am extremely busy, however I do not feel the need to try and justify this to anyone who will listen.
I do however accept that a few of our elected do actually earn their keep and that their attendance records are high, it’s just a shame that this is not the case for all.
As for deputy Parkinsons deluded comments it is obvious that he is oblivious as to how badly this Island is being run and is ignoring the thousands spent on countless reports telling us this.
Its time that voting was Island wide and the candidates standing have local status to stand!
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You see Geoff that’s where you and I differ, I don’t mind explaining myself as an elected deputy and it’s important to engage as I said. We all lead busy lives and we will not always agree but I thank you for your recognition that deputies do have high attendance records.
As for your other comments about Charles being deluded I know that not to be the case, it is true there are a couple of reports that are not very flattering to us but what do they really say? Mostly that we don’t do things in Guernsey like they do in England or Wales or wherever, well do you know what Geoff I am really pleased about that because we are not in the mess they are in either. We may not get everything right and there is much we can do to improve the government of this island but we are in much better shape than almost everywhere else and that has not happened by accident, some of that is down to people like Charles who have kept a steady hand on the tiller through one of the worst global crashes the world has ever seen. Go and have a look at the new schools and the new clinical block, to see how fortunate we are in this island to have first class services with one of the lowest tax burdens on the planet Think about all the fantastic advantages we have in Guernsey, a way of life which is the envy of many around the world, a future for our children and my grand children that I suggest they would struggle to find elsewhere.
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