The Scottish Conservative Candidates' Board and the Scottish Executive have decided on the rules for the List process in 2007.
Only constituency candidates, with a proven commitment to their constituency campaigns, are eligible for ranking in the regional lists. Party members in each of the seven regions will then rank them in a postal ballot.
However, candidates will again be highly restricted in their campaigning activities before and during the ranking period, despite some earlier assurances to the contrary. They are banned from soliciting support from members in any way other than with one A4 piece of paper, one hustings, and a CV sent out with the ballot papers. So members are allowed to have in a say in the rankings, but not to determine their vote by being canvassed or emailed.
This restriction on campaigning will help to entrench sitting regional MSPs who are already better known outside of their own constituencies. Most of the many young and able candidates fighting no-hope constituencies will have little chance of getting the top couple of regional rankings. These proposals have stirred some Scottish activists as much as the Vote blue, get red issue as Holyrood's Conservative group is often accused of having "gone native" and to be in need of new blood.
Brian Monteith MSP advocates a fresh approach to solve the problem:
"We have heard a great deal of tosh about a new Scottish politics that Holyrood would usher in - and it hasn't happened. Open primaries could be the harbinger of that change by working with the Scottish people's innate support for democracy, debate and giving people their say."
Open primaries would also give Conservative MSPs the personal electoral mandates that are lacking in the closed party list system.
Attached to these proposals sent to members of the Scottish Council
last
week, and seen by ConservativeHome, was a covering letter from David
Mundell MP (the Chairman of the Board and only Conservative MP in Scotland). The letter placed "the greatest
importance on ensuring the candidates maximise their efforts in their
constituencies rather than focussing on the listing process".
The three Conservative constituency MSPs are David McLetchie (Edinburgh Pentlands, majority 2111), John Scott (Ayr, majority 1890) and Alex Fergusson (Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, majority 99). They were all ranked either first or second in their respective regions last time. Candidates "may request not to be ranked on the List", but should they be omitted from the regional list so that they can "maximise their efforts" on their current constituencies?
The current system seems to disincentivise both prospective and incumbent MSPs from concentrating efforts on specific constituencies - efforts which in the long-term are needed to make ground in Holyrood and Westminster.
Deputy Editor
