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Phil Braidwood, Alex Downie and Dudley Butt elected to Legislative Council
AN MHK's elevation to the Isle of Man's upper chamber will lead to a by-election.
Douglas East MHK Phil Braidwood has been elected to the Legislative Council.
He received 20 votes in the first round of voting in the House of Keys today (Monday).
Seven candidates were vying to fill four places on LegCo to serve a five-year term.
None of the other candidates received the minimum number required to be elected at the first round and voting was continuing as the Examiner went to press.
However Alex Downie received 15 votes on the second round and retains his place on the Legislative Council.
At the third round Dudley Butt was elected with 15 votes and retains his place on LegCo.
Celebrity chef Kevin Woodford and Patrick Commissioner David Talbot then dropped out, while John Skinner, who was nominated from the floor after the first round of voting decided to withdraw.
It left Alan Crowe and George Waft bidding to keep their place on the Legislative Council - but only one can.
By the tenth and final round of voting, neither reached the minimum required 13 votes, with Mr Crowe receiving 11 to Mr Waft's seven.
The House of Keys was adjourned and is seeking fresh nominations for LegCo candidates by April 15 with a further election to take no fewer than two weeks later.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Send your comments to newsviews@newsiom.co.im
YOUR COMMENTS
I cannot understand why they regard Braidwood so highly. He was no great shakes as a MHK. He seems to be a rather dour character, with a selective nature.
FERGAL STINKBOTTOM
What a complicated way to give people a position of power with a nice fat salary to match!
ANON
What a farce, the sooner we have an elected upper house the better, agree with anon, we need a general election sooner, rather than later if much later will the last person leaving the Isle of Man turn the lights out.
RR
To be fair to Mr Braidwood he has done good work in Treasury. With a vote of 20 in the first round - which must be something of record - can only mean that CoMin wanted a more friendly face on LegCo to smooth the path forthcoming legislation. I don't know why people are so fixated with the idea of an "elected" upper house; we currently elect the MHKs and all people do is moan about them!
DAVE
I disagree with the comments on this thread (and others) that we need an elected upper house. The main argument in favour of a publically-elected LegCo seems to be that it would increase Council's legitimacy, and that its members would therefore be more politically accountable to the electorate. This, however, is not the function of LegCo. Its members may or may not be politically responsible, depending on your point of view (i.e. they do have departmental duties as 'political members' but cannot be voted in or voted out by the public) but their primary role is the scrutiny of legislation emanating from the Keys. We elect our 24 MHKs to legislate for our Island and protect our local interests, and if we're not happy with their performance, we can get shut of them at the next general election. LegCo, on the other hand, is a revising chamber responsible for making our laws as clear and concise as possible, spotting defects, closing loopholes etc. LegCo needs members experienced in the drafting and revising of legislation. It needs members who do not have subjective local interests at heart, but who can scrutinise legislation in an objective manner for the benefit of the Island as a whole. If LegCo is to be popularly elected by the people, we could potentially end up with a chamber of inexperienced members elected solely on local interests but with no clue about how to scrutinise bills from the Keys. The following may not be fair comparisons, but neither the House of Lords nor the French Senate are popularly elected, and their work in modifying legislation from the lower chamber is crucial. Jersey and Guernsey only have one chamber, although this is popularly elected. The other issue I see with a popularly elected LegCo is one of legitimacy, but not in 'accountability' sense. If we have two popularly elected chambers, we could well see power struggles between them. Both being elected by the people, which is more legitimate than the other? Keys because it has more members? LegCo because it is the 'upper' chamber? What happens if, heaven forbid, LegCo starts to veto legislation from the Keys and propose a whole range of amendments? Admittedly it is an unlikely scenario but the possibility would be there. If LegCo is to become popularly elected, and especially when its 4-member rotation system comes after a general Keys election, the new LegCo members could quite well argue that since their mandate from the people is more recent than that of the Keys in the last general election, they should be able to impress their own views upon legislation coming up from the Keys. Those are my concerns, I await others' views to the contrary!
BACON LOVER
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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