Many of my politically
interested friends are pleased to see that this week The States Of
Jersey finally approved, in principle, a referendum on the revised
electoral system proposed by the Clothier Commission. There is
certainly a strong case for replacing the current mish-mash of
accidents of history with a modern and coherently designed process.
Nevertheless, despite those around me telling me how good Clothier is
in theory, I have yet to see any explanation that actually convinces
me it is the right way forward.
The Clothier scheme
successfully addresses the equality questions that so many hold
against the current complex voting system. Neither voters in their
representation, nor politicians in their mandates, have any kind of
equality from parish to parish and office to office. Clothier would
have a single rank of members, all from similarly-sized
constituencies. Job done.
However, I feel
Clothier has provided the right answer to the wrong question. In
general, equality is a better principle than inequality, but I
disagree that it should take priority over effectiveness of
representation. Before they started chipping at the current system, I
had fourteen representatives, the Constable, a Deputy and twelve
Senators. In the urban districts, despite their whinging about
getting less than their share, the multi-Deputy districts had sixteen
or seventeen representatives, including up to four of their own local
ones. So, apart from uncontested elections, we all got to vote for or
against over a quarter of our little parliament. That is actually
pretty strong democracy, that most of the world would envy, despite
the awkward structure benefiting the kind of candidates, that people
who read blogs like this would not want. Now, cuts in Senators bring
our shares down a little, but I can still look forward to ten votes
at the next election. Even so, that is still almost a quarter, a real
say in the make-up of the States.
What, in contrast would
I have to look forward to on the first election day after an
implementation of Clothier? Possibly, one single seat to vote on, and
in my particular locality, if it were contested at all, there would
still be only one potential winner. Thus, as an avid follower of
politics and current affairs, I would find myself denied any
significant power to contribute to the success of those I would like
to see in government.
All around Jersey,
others like me would find the same disengagement foisted upon them.
Each district would put forward its popular local bigwig, with or
without the bother of seeing off a no-hoper or two, and except in a
handful of less predictable town seats, effective democracy would be
wiped out. That prospect saddens and scares me.
A “Yes” vote for
Clothier would certainly blast the present political establishment,
but it would be a suicide bomb that takes our own hopes for better
democracy with it. Don't do it!
1 comment:
Don’t worry, the States won’t be implementing any kind of reform, Clothier or otherwise, any time soon, unless it’s another variant of the Option B gerrymander. The Right got greedy wanting to not only entrench COM power with Constables perpetuated for another generation or so, but also cull the numbers to make management easier and marginalise dissent to irrelevance. That’s why Option B lost. They may try again.
The political class are paralysed – indecision rules. The electorate should be furious. Instead of long overdue change, we just get more ill-thought-out consultation on issues to which the rational answers are obvious. It’s further failure to modernise and further failure to democratise.
You, like the rest of the electorate, have no real choice. There is no policy choice available as there are no manifestos to which candidates can be held accountable. We know there are no political parties and that in itself is part of the backwardness, the denial of choice to the electorate. Parties are how democracies are structured. Jersey is in fact a one party state.
In addition to no policy choice, the electorate has no way of structuring the States. The decision about who is to be the Chief Minister is hived off to an electoral college, the States Assembly; one step away from the electorate. This is indirect democracy, it stinks of Aritocracy. Hence the popular demand to be able to choose the Chief Minister directly. That there is no mechanism to do so brings us back to the absence of parties. We are in the chamber of mirrors.
We need electoral reform so as to create a level playing field. It should not matter where one lives in the island, one’s vote should carry the same weight.
On BBC Radio Jersey on Thursday, the lunctime phone in had Russel Labey as its guest. He had been a supporter of Option C, but is clearly closer in spirit to the democratic principles underlying Option A. He made an astute observation to a caller: “Why do you think it is there is a fear of the voters in St Helier? Why is there reluctance not to give them fair votes? We want people to live in the Town, not everybody can live in the Country as there would be no country, yet we are not treating the people who live in the Town properly.”
The why is answered very simply. It’s the fear of the working classes, of the immigrant communities. The elite fear the masses in an island that has changed radically from a sociological perspective, from one of land owning peasants to a cosmopolitan and diverse society.
Sit at the top of Queen Street, take a coffee and watch the world go by. It is diverse and cosmopolitan, it is young and old, Poles, Romanians, Scousers and Beans. None of those things is the States. In other words the States is unrepresentative. The States is a bulwark of the past. It must change.
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