Duty to vote should not be ignored
IT TAKES just a few minutes every four years, yet casting a vote in today's general election will have an impact on generations to come.
IT TAKES just a few minutes every four years, yet casting a vote in today's general election will have an impact on generations to come.
In difficult times it is more important, not less, that people vote.
In days of plenty, the States can be a friend to all, provide lavish health and social services and build schools and courts without the need to raise taxes or impose new charges. Life is easy.
The 45 deputies elected at around midnight tonight will have no such luxury.
Not for them endless discussions about whether to buy a ceremonial mace or impose a dog tax, they have some genuinely tricky issues to decide upon.
Those who think of Guernsey as a politically passive area have short memories. Just a couple of years ago deputies were visibly shaken by the passion of anti-burner protesters who gathered outside the Royal Court House in their hundreds to rail against the waste-to-energy incinerator.
And it is not that many years since 3,000 people picked up their placards and marched in objection to plans to fill in Belle Greve Bay.
Once stirred, islanders will show political passion.
Today is an opportunity to show that same fervour, albeit in the quiet confines of the voting booth. For there are some very tight elections in prospect across the island and each vote could be the difference between a good candidate being elected or a bad one sneaking in.
Those who choose not to vote, or spoil their papers, will have no say in those elections and the candidates who win or lose. In turn, they will have no say in whether the island brings in VAT, raises the 20p income tax bracket, abolishes the 11-plus, decides to build an incinerator or starts closing schools.
Nothing can be discounted.
There is no one on the island who will not be affected in some way by the decisions taken by this States, some of which will have ramifications for our children and grandchildren.
Electors who turn their backs on those decisions will not stop them being made, they will just have shirked their responsibility.
