SOMETIMES issues relating to Jersey’s election system appear simple in principle, but somehow become supremely complicated in practice.
It was refreshing to see that although it teetered on the edge at times, Deputy Ward’s proposals for a voluntary code of practice – requiring any political groups to openly state their policies, financial arrangements, and decision-making structures – was actually quite straightforward.
The key point is that those groups needed to be actually endorsing candidates, and in doing so, attempting to influence the make-up of the States Assembly, which makes the laws we all live by.
If that is their aim, then we should know who is funding them, what exactly they stand for, and who is in charge, before we decide to vote for them.
Those democratic principles should be self-evident, and it is perhaps interesting that they needed to be restated.
“Groups”, incidentally, includes all political movements, collaborations or campaigns. If they are endorsing specific candidates, then we need the above information, although because of the short timeframe left before the next election, this time it will be voluntary.
So far so good. But what if a group/collaboration/movement/campaign (insert collective noun for politicians here) is not actually endorsing a candidate at all? What if actually, their aim is for candidates to endorse them instead, as a way of showing a shared espousal of a stated political objective, and accessing shared support?
We might describe it as an “anti-party”.
If that is the positioning, the new code (notwithstanding the fact its currently voluntary) wouldn’t apply.
It also reverses the traditional electoral axis in which a political party (which seem to be the words it is impolite to mention) vets, briefs, organises and promotes candidates for the voters to assess. They declare their rules, funding and structure, and are legally accountable for doing so.
Setting aside the interminable debate about whether party politics is right for Jersey, at least voters know where they stand.
While Deputy Ward’s proposals have brought welcome further clarity, the position still remains in which a political group can remain opaque about its funding or decision-making structure, as long as it requires candidates to endorse it, rather than the other way around.
Quite what would happen if those candidates were elected all the way through to the Council of Ministers, who then took a different view to the political grouping they had hitherto endorsed, remains to be seen.
Once again, something which should be so simple – voters knowing exactly who and what they are voting for – has somehow remained frustratingly opaque.
