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The problem is not too many candidates, but too few voters
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From Nick Le Cornu.
The recent proposal by the Privileges and Procedures Committee to introduce forfeitable £500 deposits for candidates in all (contrary to your article JEP, 17 September) States Assembly elections, including Deputies and Constables and, in those for Senators, to require two nominators from each parish, is motivated by a backward looking anti-democratic spirit.
Deposits were introduced for Westminster elections in 1918 to deter frivolous candidates and continued ever since for all elections in the UK, except for local government, parish and community council elections.
Following a court case in 2001 argued on Human Rights grounds, the Irish Republic abolished deposits for Dial and European elections. A 2003 UK Electoral Commission report recommended the abolition of deposits, or if retained that the threshold for forfeiture be reduced from 5 per cent to 2 per cent. They also recommended abolition of the subscriber system for all elections.
The report argued the chances of a person being elected should not be a relevant factor in determining the legitimacy of their candidacy and unnecessary hurdles should not be placed in the way of a citizen going forward for election in the public interest.
The distinction between serious and joke or frivolous candidates was a judgement best left to the electorate. The financial constraint of a deposit they regarded as an outdated and inappropriate imposition on the democratic process, relying, as it does, on an individual’s financial standing or ability to raise additional funds.
The report noted international experience lent weight to the notion that deposits are an impediment to a citizen’s democratic right to stand for election. A large number of European countries do not have deposit systems, nor are they applicable in the USA.
What irritated PPC about the unprecedented number of candidates in the 2008 Senatorial election, and so called no hopers in June’s Senatorial by-election, is that some expressed dissenting voices. Also troubling power holders is the success of organised political groups representing the popular classes. What better way to eliminate dissent than create financial hurdles and exclusionary rules?
The poor are, by definition, also less well-connected and will struggle to obtain nominators from all Parishes in a socially divided Island.
Why should an impoverished man not stand for election, just because they say he won’t get elected? The classic example must be Norman Le Brocq, a man with wholly non-mainstream views, who ended up a committee president, national hero and with a fisheries vessel bearing his name.
PPC implicitly assumes that the only legitimate candidates are sitting States members and those with a long track record in community politics. In the past candidates have stood for Senator to raise some single issue, say in one parish. Shenton senior first stood because he could not sell his house at the price he wanted. Certain St Clement deputies have been elected with manifestos confined to parking issues. Are these frivolous criteria for being elected?
The States have shown that they are incapable of reforming themselves by consistently rejecting the democratic aspects of the Clothier reforms, leaving an arcane and antiquated institutional structure. If the system for electing Senators is creaking why not just abolish Senators? Clothier predicted these now apparent difficulties in an inherently contradictory system.
PPC’s tinkering with regulations must be set in the context of Jersey’s chronic 80 per cent electoral abstention. While 15,000 voted in the last Senatorial by-election, 40,000 did not and thousands of urban residents remain unregistered to vote.
PPC are blind to the fundamental problem, not of too many candidates or their calibre, but of too few voters. Low turnout is directly attributable to an antiquated electoral system and now PPC want to restrict candidates to only those who can be pre-selected as a safe pair of hands.
As a new elected Senator with much to prove in the short time before the next election, Francis Le Gresley may wish to reflect before endorsing PPC’s restrictive petty regulations as reasonable. At least, he and PPC should read the above-mentioned 2003 report.
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