Up to 15 Senatorial hustings

Wednesday 10 August 2016

The 11 candidates standing for Senator have opted to go along with the traditional 12 parish hustings.

There’s also the possibility of an extra three: one for the farmers, one for the unions, and one for the Island’s youth.

In all that makes 15 events squeezed into a 16-day window.

The potential politicians are also considering organising a ‘drop in session.'

The first of the parish hustings will be in St Saviour on Monday.

It’s planned the hustings will last two hours, starting at 19:30. With so many candidates it’s being proposed speeches are cutback to 3 minutes. That means parishioners will have heard from all the potential politicians in just over half an hour.

The rest of the time will be taken up by questions. Again it’s proposed to keep answering time to a minimum – two minutes per candidate – so as many questions as possible can be got through.

The idea behind the ‘drop in session’ is that all the politicians will be in one place at the same time and you’ll be able to have a one-to-one with them. It’s proposed to do this at St Paul’s Centre on a Saturday close to election day from 11:00 to around 15:00.

The line up of candidates was confirmed at last night’s nomination meeting at the Town Hall.

The eleven you can choose from include one current States member Deputy Sam Mezec; four former politicians: Guy de Faye, Sarah Ferguson, Nick Le Cornu, and John Young; and six newcomers: Alvin Aaron, Mike Dun, Christian May, Stevie Ocean, Mary O'Keeffe-Burgher, and Hugh Raymond.

The post has fallen vacant because of the shock resignation of Senator Zoe Cameron. She quit in frustration saying it was impossible to get anything done, claiming she’d been cold-shouldered by the Council of Ministers.

Election day is Wednesday 7^th September. The term of office will last until spring 2018.