"So, Where is this new direction we are taking" (Vince Thompson)

Great photo and caption from Vince taken during the 'official' photo opportunity

I have printed a copy with the caption and will put it on the wall in our new office when we move in as a reminder should we start behaving pompously

First Legislative Council meeting

The first formal LegCo was a slightly nerve wracking event as there is a degree of protocol to be followed and it is a public event.

What made it more interesting was that the day before I stumbled on the 'Oath of Confidentiality' that we were required to swear or affirm.  For some reason both Lawson and I had missed this in reading the constitution and no one else had spoken about it.  It goes against everything that we had campaigned for in creating an open and transparent government.  We had to quickly decide what we would do so we agreed to issue a statement saying that while we would take the oath we did so under protest.  We did not want to refuse to take it as this could have caused all sorts of problems and with so much work to be done we did not want to delay to opening of LegCo.

Below is my inaugural speech to LegCo which refers to this oath

Madam Deputy Speaker

I feel a sense of coming full circle in standing here today as

it is in this very building toward the end of last year that the

seed was first planted that led me to stand for election.  I

was invited to join in the youth parliament debate and I

remember giving a rather theatrical speech in favour of

young people having free spectacles and hearing aids.  We

 won the debate and don’t worry the irony is not lost on me

that now as the new chair of the Health and Social Welfare

committee I am going to have to address this issue.

That first speech led to some reading of political biographies,

a subscription to the magazine Total Politics, a few faltering

conversations with my wife Belinda, who at the time I

suspect was just humouring me, and eventually to my

declaring an intention to stand for election.

I am humbled by the number of people who showed faith in

me at the polls and I feel the weight of responsibility to not

let them and the whole of the electorate, indeed the whole

island, down. 

Watching an election from the other side one is struck by

two things. Firstly the logistics of the operation and the

efficient way in which the teams worked both at the polling

stations and during the count.   The other is the solemnity of

the event, the little things such as being shown an empty

ballot box before it is sealed or having to vacate a polling

station so that a voter can be assisted to vote.  In some ways

it reminded me of religious rituals and if you think I am

being melodramatic is there not something almost sacred in

the population placing an X in a box to choose those who will

work on their behalf.

Democracy is a fragile activity and one we too often take for

granted.  There was no vote rigging or violence during our

election. Contrast this with Egypt, Iraq or Kenya where

standing for office can be a death sentence.  But just because

our lives are not at risk does not mean that we can be

complacent.

We have a constitution and one that upholds our

fundamental human rights.  This is important because it is

within living memory that one of these rights, a right to a

nationality, was denied to many Saints.  We owe a great deal

to all those who fought so hard to restore citizenship and we

must remain vigilant to ensure that other rights are not

denied. 

This is why freedom of information is so important.  It serves

to protect the people from exploitation and holds the

government and administration accountable.  It

fundamentally alters the relationship between government

and the public so that power is not handed over with a

individual’s vote. The person elected to office is subject to

scrutiny as are all of those in administration.  In colonial

times the rulers did not have to listen to those that they

ruled.  Today there should not be any rulers; there are

leaders who make decisions on behalf of the community but

they must make these decisions for the common good of the

community.

The Oath of Confidentiality does nothing for the common

good.  It promotes a culture of secrecy; it reinforces the

divide between those who are elected and those who elected

them.  It has no place in a Constitution that otherwise

protects the fundamental rights of Saints.

As we move into an exciting period of the island’s history we

must not forget those who may not feel part of this new

chapter in the St Helena narrative.  We must never forget

those who struggle with illness, disability or who

do not feel that they fit in.  It is not enough to say that

economic development will benefit all.  We as members of

the council have a moral obligation to ensure that the

‘vulnerable’ are supported and not just paid lip service.  That

means that we must never let the trappings of office, or the

busyness of our work schedules become a barrier to engaging

with the community.  We must aim high, perhaps we should

even dare to rise to the challenge set by Martin Luther King

Junior

“Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will

 require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a

quantitative change in our lives”

You may have also heard me quote the late US Senator Paul

Wellstone before but as we as a council embark on this very

exciting journey we will all do well to remember his words

over the next four years:

“Politics is not about big money or power games; it is about

the improvement of people’s lives”

That one you may have heard but I will leave you with

another powerful statement from the late Senator Wellstone

“Never separate the life you lead from the words you speak”

Dottie

For those who do not know me I am in the middle and Lawson is on my right.  On my left is my good friend Dorothy Peters.  What is not apparent from the picture is that Dottie is in a wheelchair.  She lives at the CCC, St Helena's nursing home.  

Dottie's mobility became progressively worse until she could no longer live at home and she moved into care. What has always amazed me is the way Dottie has just got on with it and accepted the restrictions that her disabling illness increasing puts on her.

Once I decided to stand for election I asked Dottie to sponsor me.  I explained to her that in a sense I was using her but I no longer just wanted to talk about improving access for people with disabilities.  I wanted to make a point that most buildings on the island are not accessible and as my sponsor I wanted her to join me for the count.  Normally counting is completed in the Castle in the council chambers.  As this is up several flights of stairs there was no way Dottie could access this.  I made a request to Corporate Support who are the St Helena Government department in charge of organising elections for the counting to be done in a disabled access room.  To their credit they took the request on board immediately and they chose Prince Andrew School hall as the venue for the count.  The education department have a wheelchair accessible car and they agreed that this could be used to bring Dottie over to the hall.  

To me this shows the willingness of people to assist people with disabilities but there remains the fundamental problem of improving access around the island.  Not easy with our hilly terrain and historic buildings but much more can be done.  It is only by enabling people with disabilities to participate in events that we will begin to show the community the importance of improved disabled access.  

Election night

I think by the time this picture was taken we were pretty sure we had been elected.  This must have been taken some time after 4.00 in the morning.  It had been a long day, going around the polling stations, and an even longer night.  The staff who organised and ran the election were amazing, and each ballot paper was read out loud with two people recording the votes.  At one point I timed the reading out of papers for five minutes and worked out on average it took 15 seconds to read a paper.  So that meant 4 in a minute or 240 an hour.  It must have been about 1.30 when I worked this out and then with something like 1200 votes to count it became apparent that the whole process was going to take at least 5 hours.

The campaign

So having decided to stand for election the time came to start thinking about policies and a manifesto. Fortunately Lawson Henry called me and suggested that we run together as we had similar ideas.  I had only met Lawson once before but after our initial meeting it was clear that we could work together.  One of those situations where you just get on with it.  We did not sit down and divide up the tasks in a planned way, Lawson suggested he do certain things, I suggested certain things and together a campaign was born.  We held a series of public meetings and other candidates were invited to join us, five did.  We had radio interviews on both of the island's radio stations, wrote articles for the paper, commissioned a TV interview and had talk and music radio show the day before the election.  It was a lot of hard work but then we felt that we needed to give the electorate every chance to hear our message or meet us.

The story so far

In the beginning

Actually let us not start that far back.  I can trace the idea of running for St Helena Legislative Council (LegCo) from August 2012.  I had just transferred from the health service to environmental management and I had been invited to join the youth parliament in one of their debates.  The topic was that prescriptions for hearing aids and glasses should be free for people of school age.  I was in favour of the motion and we won the debate.  As you will  find out if you continue to read this blog I am keen on quotes so I used some words from Mandela on the importance of education and generally went for a dramatic and impassioned effect.

Several people were kind enough after to say they enjoyed my speech and Mr Radio, Tony Leo, asked if I had considered running for council.  I had not until he said that and then I could not get it out of my head.  I started reading some political biographies and looking at political websites.  Anyway it became a minor obsession which was why I jumped at the chance of saying that I would stand for election when the previous council was dissolved.

FIRST DAY AT WORK FOR THE NEW  ST HELENA LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

 



Well you know in the movies when the opening scene ends and the caption comes up 'One month earlier' well I will do the blog equivalent as we need to first go back to the begining of the story.  I also need to see what happens when I press "publish".

I must make it clear that any opiniorns expressed in this blog are my personal views and this is not an official form of  communication from the St Helena Legislative Council.  I hope that it will provide another avenue for information in our drive from openness and transperency but as I stated earlier what will be expressed are my own views

Ian Rummery