After last May's election there was some disquiet in the ranks of Plaid Cymru about the party's gender balance policy of ensuring that a woman has number one spot in every list election. The main complaint was that the list preference system enabled Janet Ryder to be elected rather than Dafydd Wigley. A secondary complaint was that after Wales' allocation of MEP's was reduced by one (the "loser" being Plaid's Eurig Wyn) that Plaid has an electoral mountain to climb before it elects a second MEP. Unless Plaid gains a huge increase in votes, its voice in Europe will be female in perpetuity.
As a result of this disquiet Plaid's last party conference agreed to review its gender balance policies. In yesterday's Western Mail Dafydd Wigley suggested that the review should look at ways of enabling balance for other under-represented groups, not just women. Given his long-standing interest in disablement equality Dafydd suggested that the lists might be used to enable people who live with a disability to get elected to the Assembly.
Like Peter Black AM, I don’t think that "using the lists" is the best way of ensuring that people who live with a disability gain a voice in the Assembly. Unlike Mr Black, I don't think that Mr Wigley's comments should be rubbished and dismissed out of hand. Dafydd Wigley raises an important topic for debate. Whether one agrees or disagree with his conclusions, I think that Wigley should be congratulated for raising the issue.
This post is already longer than I intended it to be. So I shall split it and return to the subject in further posts over the next few days.
Showing posts with label Lists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lists. Show all posts
27/12/2007
10/05/2007
An all-Wales list?
Vaughan Roderick made a post on his blog yesterday about the list system. In the post he suggested that one of the ways of doing away with some of the vagaries of the list system would be to have one all Wales list rather than five regional lists. Vaughan claims that a single list would make the list more proportional.
Vaughan isn't the first person to suggest this; the Greens have advocated an all Wales list for many years. Many have commentated the folly of having regions based on European Parliamentary constituencies that no longer exist.
I have worries about a single list, however. Our MEP's are chosen on an all Wales basis. Needles to say they are all from the south. The current list system gives a very poor geographical spread of representatives in its present form. None of the North Wales list members live in the west of the region. With the loss of Glyn Davies and Lisa Francis none of the current regional members for Mid and West Wales are from the Mid bit.
The map shows the concentration (in red) of the areas where list members are based; the blue bit shows how much of Wales doesn’t have a local list member. If we had an all Wales list I fear that the blue bit would be grater and that the red bit would be concentrated around a ten-mile radius of Cardiff. Too many people in north and mid Wales feel alienated from the Assembly now. An all-Wales list with a Cardiff centric bias would add to that feeling of alienation.
Vaughan isn't the first person to suggest this; the Greens have advocated an all Wales list for many years. Many have commentated the folly of having regions based on European Parliamentary constituencies that no longer exist.
I have worries about a single list, however. Our MEP's are chosen on an all Wales basis. Needles to say they are all from the south. The current list system gives a very poor geographical spread of representatives in its present form. None of the North Wales list members live in the west of the region. With the loss of Glyn Davies and Lisa Francis none of the current regional members for Mid and West Wales are from the Mid bit.
The map shows the concentration (in red) of the areas where list members are based; the blue bit shows how much of Wales doesn’t have a local list member. If we had an all Wales list I fear that the blue bit would be grater and that the red bit would be concentrated around a ten-mile radius of Cardiff. Too many people in north and mid Wales feel alienated from the Assembly now. An all-Wales list with a Cardiff centric bias would add to that feeling of alienation.
09/05/2007
A Directly Elected First Minister?
There is a very vitriolic attack on the Liberal Democrats by Simon Jenkins in today's Guardian, in which he suggests that the Liberal Democrats are the flotsam of 20th-century politics drifting on into the 21st and suggesting that the best thing that the party could do is disband, to fold their tent and go.
On the whole the article is an illogical rant by somebody who clearly has an axe to grind with the Lib Dems, but it does contain one interesting observation. Commenting on the way that the Lib Dems are refusing to go into coalition with either the Labour Party or the National Parties in Scotland and Wales (at the moment at least) Jenkins suggests that it would be better if the First Ministers were elected in the same way as the London Mayor or the President of France
I quite like this idea. France and London use slightly different ways of deciding who the winner is, but they are both a variation on a theme that leaves two candidates in a run off in which the one who gains more than half the vote gets elected.
The intriguing thing is what would happen if such a system were used in Wales?
If the run-off were Labour-Plaid, who would the Tories support? The Unionist Labour party or Plaid in order to beat the Labour archenemy.
If the run off was Labour-Conservative who would Plaid support? Would they also want to Kick Labour into touch as one of their election posters declared or would they vote for anything that wasn't blue, even a Labour FM?
On the whole the article is an illogical rant by somebody who clearly has an axe to grind with the Lib Dems, but it does contain one interesting observation. Commenting on the way that the Lib Dems are refusing to go into coalition with either the Labour Party or the National Parties in Scotland and Wales (at the moment at least) Jenkins suggests that it would be better if the First Ministers were elected in the same way as the London Mayor or the President of France
It is a tragedy that in Scotland and Wales the executive is chosen from the parliament, as at Westminster, but from one composed by PR, thus virtually ensuring rolling coalitions. This was instead of the London option of a separate executive and assembly, which is the constitutional basis of devolved government almost everywhere. Scotland and Wales should have had directly elected first ministers, with proportionately elected assemblies to check them. This would have met the requirement for a strong government in Edinburgh and Cardiff and for proportional representation in the balancing parliament/assembly.
I quite like this idea. France and London use slightly different ways of deciding who the winner is, but they are both a variation on a theme that leaves two candidates in a run off in which the one who gains more than half the vote gets elected.
The intriguing thing is what would happen if such a system were used in Wales?
If the run-off were Labour-Plaid, who would the Tories support? The Unionist Labour party or Plaid in order to beat the Labour archenemy.
If the run off was Labour-Conservative who would Plaid support? Would they also want to Kick Labour into touch as one of their election posters declared or would they vote for anything that wasn't blue, even a Labour FM?
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