You’re a strange bunch, aren’t you? Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but you’re a strange, mixed-up, inscrutable bunch of people.

A political novice tops the Senatorial poll, the man behind the 19,000-strong anti-GST petition comes in second, and then you pick four people who supported the 3% sales tax to come in right behind them.

With a record field of 21 candidates offering an unprecedented breadth of reform, green, left and right manifestos, you stuck it out with the generally conservative brand of politics that you’re used to.

And while you toss-ed out one minister, you kept faith with three who have had a big hand in rampant population growth, or the not totally popular Income Support package, or the sometimes confusing matters at the harbour.
That suggests wider satisfaction with ministerial government — and Senators Paul Routier and Philip Oz-ouf and Deputy Alan Maclean — than was obvious or apparent.

There were only 381 votes out of a total of 24,338 that separated the two Senators and the Deputy who finished third, fourth and fifth. In 2005 almost 4,000 votes separated those three positions.

What that suggests to me is that the three candidates were clearly identified, and endorsed, on the back of their ministerial records by a similar core of voters.

Putting Ian Le Marquand at the top of the poll, that was an interesting touch. Voters went with someone new to politics — the first time since the mid-1990s that a newcomer had topped the chart — and someone who foxes, for now at least, the traditional establishment/anti-establishment classification.

It’s hard to think of any former chief officer — he was Judicial Greffier in the mid-1990s — as a radical figure for Island politics, but his comments on the quality of States Members, essentially his point that in the entire States Chamber there is not one candidate with the skills for the job of Chief Minister, aren’t what you’d expect from an allegedly establishment figure.

And after the fresh-faced newcomer — odd words to use about a 57-year-old, but if the cap fits — came a 15-year States veteran. Deputy Alan Breckon polled more than 10,000 votes, and has probably got a fair shout at a ministerial position if he wants one.

And he was the only candidate to advocate a Freedom of Information Law at every hustings. Giving people six votes each isn’t going to lead towards particularly coherent election results, and it probably favours the candidates with whom everyone is familiar — just as the extended field of 21 runners did.

And while it would be true to say that the results favoured ministers, it would also be true to point out — thanks to some timely statistical analysis from Senator Ben Shenton — that the three ministerial candidates lost between 35-50% of their votes compared to their 2002 performances.

You could probably argue that five out of six successful candidates in 2002 were conservatives (Senator Wendy Kinnard being the exception), but I think you’d have to say it’s four out of six this time around. And while the increased turnout is the best story out of the election, it’s not time yet for anyone to sit back and reflect on a job well done.

The total, 44.1% of registered voters, is an improvement — but it’s just another way of saying that most of those who even registered to vote didn’t make it to the ballot box. This is something that Guernsey has got right. How can it be so difficult to do it here?

ON a brighter and encouraging note, the only declared candidate for Chief Minister has made two big commitments — should he get the job, of course.

The first is a ministerial reshuffle, which kind of makes sense when you remember that there will be three ministers departing the States over the next few weeks, possibly four.

The second is a lot more significant. Senator Terry Le Sueur says that the new Strategic Plan would, if he were elected Chief Minister, be a lot more focused, and drawn up not just by the ministers but by the whole of the States.

As long as he’s serious about a more inclusive process, and as long as there are no sacred cows in the drafting — whether it’s the Income Tax rate, immigration caps or Planning terms — that’s the best news anyone could have hoped for.

ONE of the more interesting things about the election was the amount of common ground between the candidates.

There was the hustings meeting in Grouville when all 21 backed the idea of more research into tidal power, and there was the general acceptance that more needs to be done in reforming the States Chamber, and there was wide approval of a Guernsey-style age care scheme based on extra social security payments.

Don’t get carried away with any of these ideas. Last week’s election was for six seats — the election next month is for nearly five times that.