Vote reform referendum 'next May'
A date for a referendum on reform of the Westminster voting system will be announced next week
The London Evening Standard.,02.07.10
A date for a referendum on reform of the Westminster voting system will be announced next week, it has been confirmed - amid reports that the vote will be held in May next year.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg indicated that a statement on the timing of the public vote on a move to the alternative vote system was imminent.
The BBC reported that May 5, 2011 - the same day as local elections in England and Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly polls - had been chosen.
Agreement to a referendum on a switch from first-past-the-post to the alternative vote was a key Liberal Democrat demand for forming a coalition Government with the Tories.
Mr Clegg's party wants it to coincide with next year's elections to improve turnout.
But there are fears an early vote could prove highly damaging for the coalition as the Tories will campaign for a public "no" vote.
Mr Clegg has hailed the vote as a "once in a generation" chance to make voting fairer - though it falls well short of his party's long-held desire for proportional representation.
"I'm hoping to make an announcement literally in a couple of days, next week," he said when asked about the timing of the referendum.
Asked about the BBC report, a Government source said: "The date will be announced in due course when it is finalised. That is likely to be in the next week."
2 comments:
Do we need a Referendum For A New Democracy?
Are you concerned about the future of democracy? Do you feel democracy is under attack by extreme greed in countries around the world? Are you sick and tired of: living in fear, corporate greed, growing police state, government for the rich, working more but having less?
Can we use both elections and random selection (in the way we select government officials) to rid democracy of undue influence by extreme wealth and wealth-dominated mass media campaigns?
The world's first democracy (Athenian democracy, 600 B.C.) used both elections and random selection. Even Aristotle (the cofounder of Western thought) promoted the use random selection as the best way to protect democracy. The idea of randomly selecting (after screening) juries remains from Athenian democracy, but not randomly selecting (after screening) government officials. Why is it used only for individual justice and not also for social justice? Who wins from that? ...the extremely wealthy?
What is the best way to combine elections and random selection to protect democracy in today's world? Can we use elections as the way to screen candidates, and random selection as the way to do the final selection? Who wins from that? ...the people?
I'am concerned that''any''kind of Democracy can be considered as a bad social system however any other system ending in ''ism'' is worse...
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