Deputy Labey argues that States members being able to secretly cast their votes actually better serves the public because it promulgates, “…selection through merit, not through political patronage.”
Deputy Russell Labey is bringing a proposal to restore the secret ballot for Chief Minister, and bring back the bad old days when candidates for election could make all sorts of noises to please the crowd, secure in the knowledge that once elected, they could forget that and indulge in horse-trading for positions behind closed doors.
Merit! Such wishful thinking. I suggest he watches episodes of Yes Minister, or The Thick of It, or reads one or two political diaries. Secrecy is the perfect cover for political patronage.
And I remain unconvinced by his other proposition to let the public vote if a candidate gets more than 18 votes - I suspect the States will grab back the secrecy and throw this one out. Isn't it strange how all these reform propositions - and I include Deputy Andrew Lewis's earlier one - suddenly surface when an election is coming nearer., and not in the years before!
You would think he might have learned something about the duplicious nature of election promises from his time in journalism - instead he seems to have a naive and sunny optimism in which politicians are honest and trustworthy, and have all signed up to the Boy Scout or Girl Guide oath, and behave like goody-goodies in an Enid Blyton story. It's a fairy tale idea of the States, and it bears little or no resemblance to any government outside of Thomas More's Utopia. And that was fiction.
The secret ballot for Chief Minister in the past meant the public had no look at who voted for Frank Walker, or Terry le Sueur. Horse trading went on behind the scenes but it was even more opaque. If there had been a secret ballot when Ian Gorst faced Philip Bailhache, I would bet 100% that Bailhache would have won. It means there is no holding politicians to account as to who they put as Chief Minister. It is a licence to lie.
In a large Parliament, with mainly a two Party system, and a relatively small cabinet it makes sense to have a secret ballot, but in a small Island, with virtually no parties, where the executive is nearly half the assembly, it does not. I want to know who voted for a Chief Minister so that I can factor that in to how I vote in future.
And I want to see how people vote, not what they say they did. Deputies have been known to lie, you know!
Here are some gleanings from past blogs on the subject. It is worth remembering the dark days of the past, because the shadows are returning with his proposition. I do hope it gets voted down. That is our last best hope for democracy.
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2011/08/election-for-chief-minister-some.html
A word should be said about Senator Le Marquand's suggestion that candidates for Chief Minister should declare themselves before the elections, so that electors can than ask candidates for Constable, Deputy or Senator whom they would support as Chief Minister. This is on the face of it, an extremely good idea. But to work, it requires the Chief Minister to be chosen by an open ballot, otherwise some candidates will undoubtedly say one thing, and do something else; after all, even with an open vote on GST, several anti-GST candidates, such as Deputy Anne Dupre, simply said they had changed their minds - since being elected.
There is nothing inherently dishonest about changing one's mind, but the rapidity with which it is done does not fit well with the trust of the electors. Senator Le Marquand, it should be noted, has consistently voted for exemptions - as he said he would before being elected. But the lack of an open ballot may well lead more members to "change their minds" than might otherwise be the case; the lack of public accountability being notable. Deputy Trevor Pitman is bringing a proposition to have an open ballot for Chief Minister.
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2011/11/voting-in-bad-faith.html
I was extremely disappointed to see Carolyn Labey join the ranks of those who want secrecy, so that the general public can't see who has voted for Chief Minister. There's been a marked reluctance of many candidates in this year's election to give any straight answers, perhaps because they thought people wouldn't vote for them if they said one person and voted for another. At least now, we'll know where people's allegiances lie.
This reluctance to have transparency is part of the reason why the public becomes disillusioned with the electorate, and it is also shown in the way in which the last six years have seen the States have massively more "in camera" closed sessions than any other small jurisdiction.
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2011/08/election-for-chief-minister-some.html
We have only recently adopted the principles of ministerial government and some of those principles will be right and others of those principles will be wrong; and one that I believe is wrong is the principle that the electorate is not aware of who each Member votes for in the election for Chief Minister and for that matter in the election of any Minister. I would have thought that in any system where the electorate do not have the right to directly elect a Chief Minister, as I believe they should not, that they should at least have the credit of knowing who those who they supported have voted for in an election for Chief Minister.
Deputy Judy Martin:
This business about changing your mind: new Members, say somebody was a new Member who came in and topped the poll out there in Senators or whatever and wanted to be Chief Minister, to get to know him you get 10 minutes' speech and 15 minutes of questions; and you are going to get to know that person? No, no; there is much more going on.
The debate will be going on between the date the elections are over and the date on the 14th when we elect the Chief Minister. That is where it will all be going on, behind closed doors, in coffee rooms, in restaurants, having a nice glass of wine.
It is not done in this House, and if anyone is kidding their self that you listen, most of the minds are not made up before they come in on the 14th who they are going to have as the Chief Minister out of the 4 or 5 - obviously you may have to change your horse if it falls at the first fence - but other than that you will have a good idea. Openness and transparency in this House.
Deputy Daniel Wimberley
Senator Le Marquand said that we should be free to vote for the candidate that we think is the best candidate, and I have written in my note: "And? Okay. So we vote for the candidate we think is the best candidate; and how does that imply that it should be in secret?" and I was puzzling this: why is there a connection between it being under wraps? Does that mean that if it was open I would not vote for the person I thought was the best candidate? What would induce me not to vote for the person I thought was the best candidate?
Then he came up with this wonderful expression: "Incur the wrath of the successful candidate." We were just told, were we not, by the other non-candidate, Senator Ozouf, that if this goes through it will make it more partisan? But the argument for keeping it under wraps is that it might incur the wrath of the successful candidate if we became public and open. What is going on? I have to echo what Deputy Martin and others have said: "Are we grown-ups or are we kids?" It is just unbelievable.
Deputy Ian Gorst
I really can see no overwhelmingly good reason why we cannot say or publicly have our vote for Chief Minister open and a matter of public record. We come to our decisions on balance, we bring our independence and rational thought process to our decisions and we therefore should expect to be held accountable for those decisions and I believe that that is right and proper.
Deputy Trevor Pitman
I am asking for openness and I think all 53 of us in here would surely say that openness and transparency is a good thing. All I would say to end is that I think secrecy is really, I do not want to use the term "disease", but it is something that really is undermining democracy and it is what a lot of people feel unhappy about, whether they are from the Right or the Left. I think anything we can do to show a little more commitment to openness and transparency, any more we can do to make people feel they are engaged with what we are doing and the fact that we are asking them to participate in life in politics has got to be a good thing.
I finish by saying if we are not man, woman or jelly baby enough to stand up and say who we are going to vote for and be quite happy to explain to that person: "I am not voting for you because", it is like listening to your critics. If you do not listen to your critics, sometimes you do not learn what you were doing wrong or could have done better. I am always willing to listen to my critics. I am willing to be up front with people and tell them why I do not support them. I am willing to tell them why I think they have done a great job.
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