A great night for independent politics

20 October 2005

Back in June Elect Jersey 2005 declared that we didn't believe that Jersey had an appetite for party politics. Perhaps it was these particular parties or their particular candidates, but in this historic Senatorial election the parties have been soundly beaten by independents of a range of political hues.

It is a result which appears to confirm our island's preference for strong independent candidates. The six Senators-elect represent a range of political opinion from left to right, and have given the States chamber a welcome mix of experience and talented new blood. And there is no more independent candidate than Stuart Syvret, topping the poll as so widely predicted.

Strong endorsements for Ben Shenton and Freddie Cohen in second and third respectively, demonstrating that it's possible to be elected on the basis of either policy or personality, as long as you're very good at the approach you choose.

It would be wrong to fail to comment on Terry Le Sueur's return to the Senatorial benches. There's no doubt that he started this campaign at a disadvantage, having carried the undesirable responsibility of steering the island through the process of choosing how to raise taxation. His re-election shows that Jersey's voters recognise that effective performance is often about taking unpopular decisions on behalf of the electorate - at risk to one's own political popularity. Protest and criticism is usually much easier.

We at Elect Jersey 2005 are delighted that the top six are the same as predicted in both our online opinion polls. We believe that this demonstrates the value of having performed the polls; certainly we have noted an enormous amount of interest in them and their results. We only regret that the news media chose to avoid publishing them until after the polls had closed.

The two parties must surely now be considering their viability. There seems little doubt that Senator Paul Le Claire, who has lost his island-wide mandate, and Deputy Geoff Southern, who will be reeling at his poor showing, will put themselves forward for Deputies' seats. It remains to be seen what impact these results will have on the morale and performance of the other party candidates waiting in the wings for the Deputies' elections and the St Brelade election for Connétable. All bar one of the party candidates in those elections are standing in urban seats where the party votes were proportionally stronger. Perhaps they can rally from their defeat and still snatch a few seats in the new assembly. Or perhaps, once again, the independents will overpower them.

Who ever said politics was dull?