There is less than a week to go until the Isle of Man goes to the polls in the general election.

All 24 seats in the House of Keys are up for grabs on Thursday, September 23.

Polling cards should now be dropping through letter boxes across the island.

With the current chief minister, Howard Quayle, stepping down, we will soon have a new political leader and a new Council of Ministers.

After the election Mr Quayle’s successor will have to woo MHKs to back him or her to lead the government.

All but four who were members of the house when it was dissolved are defending their seats.

The turn-out in the last general election (2016) was only 53% - significantly lower than in the UK, which achieved 69% in 2017.

But the profile of Manx politicians has arguably never been higher after the pandemic and that might have an effect on turnout.

International observers will be scrutinising the Manx election for the first-ever time. A team of nine from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association have arrived in the island and yesterday (Thursday) briefed the press about their 12-day mission before setting up an office here.

They will be wearing high-vis jackets and watching the vote counting, with an aim of getting to all polling stations across the island during the course of election day.

Two days after the election the team will produce a report with their findings and about the ’quality and conformity’ of the election.

It will be assessed based on criteria of: fairness of the process, inclusivity, equal opportunity in the election, and transparency.

This will be followed two months later by a final report which will include recommendations on how the electoral process could be improved in the future.

They will also be meeting with the head of elections, returning officers, and independent and party candidates, as well as monitoring the campaigns in the media.

The CPA analysts will even assess the political and local environment surrounding the election, and whether or not it was influenced by any external (international) pressures.

They have an email address which anyone can contact them at with any questions at [email protected].

The plans to bring the team over, which is costing the Manx government £40,000, originated with a Tynwald motion by Garff MHK Martyn Perkins.

Head of mission Stewart Dickson said that it was important that they scrutinise the election because ’this is about promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law’, adding that it would ’help build public confidence in the electoral process’ and protect the island’s international reputation.

He stressed: ’It is not our role to interfere or to get involved in the election process - either in politics or the administration of the election, but simply to observe the election.’

’We play a passive role. We have a methodology which guides our work and we work to an international standard of election monitoring.’

Asked what his impressions were of the Manx system so far, Mr Dickson said: ’Perhaps one of the reasons why we received the invite here is because of changes to the balance of the constituencies across the island.’

This constituency boundary overhaul took place in 2013 and came into effect in 2016.

’This might have led to some interesting thing where communities were previously connected might not now be, because of the [changes to] the electoral register and polling station areas,’ Mr Dickson added.

democracies

’In addition, he noted it was interesting the new ability in this election of voters in Douglas South to vote at any polling station they choose in the constituency rather than being assigned one, adding that ’this type of voting are things that many democracies are looking at, so it will be very interesting for us to look at that.’

Registration to vote in the September 23 general election closed early this month. Voters will choose among 65 candidates to become their MHKs. Each constituency has two seats and voters can choose two candidate.

Almost all the candidates have completed our election questionnaire, and we hope their answers will better inform readers about their policies and political views.

Their responses can be found in this week’s Isle of Man Examiner and Manx Independent.

The first six constituencies - Arbory, Castletown and Malew; Ayre and Michael and the four Douglas constituencies are in the Examiner.

The remainder are in the Manx Independent.

Both papers are in the shops now.