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A blow against democracy
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Yesterday, spurning the opportunity of ordering the establishment of an independent electoral commission, a majority of our elected representatives decided – and decided for the second time – that the number of Senators should be reduced from 12 to eight.
This will eventually mean that the Assembly will be deprived of four people capable of securing election through the stern test of an all-Island vote. More importantly, it will mean that all Islanders will be deprived of vital representation at that level.
The corollary of this, of course, is that the balance of representation and power will be shifted towards the Deputies and the Constables. Some of the former are elected on absurdly small numbers of votes. And a significant number of the latter walk into office without facing a contested election. In both cases, those who take their seats enjoy a peculiar privilege – speaking and voting on behalf of electors who never had the opportunity of casting a vote for or against them.
Some might say that the situation is not so very different in the UK parliament, but that would be to ignore an ingredient missing here – party politics, a system which helps to ensure that the nation gets the government that the majority desires and also imposes a degree of control over the quality of candidates.
As anyone who takes any interest in the proceedings of the States can attest, the lack of a substantial mandate tends not to temper the contributions of Members elected on mere handfuls of votes. Many are at least as eager as those who have successfully negotiated the all-Island hurdle to tell each and every one of us how to live our lives.
It is, alas, difficult to believe that all those who voted for a reduction in the number of Senators did so with the ideals of democratic representation or the rights of Islanders in general in the forefronts of their minds. Among those in favour of the change were politicians who, on the grounds of their share of the vote, have the slenderest of rights to say how the Island is governed. That does not prevent them from craving more power and influence – which is just what they have now acquired.
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