Unfair elections?

Further to my earlier blog about the likely 2012 election for a Police Commissioner for “Devon and Cornwall,” I have today discovered that the deposit to stand will be £5,000. No doubt, the arrangements will mirror those of the European elections.

As MK supporters will be aware, in 2009, Mebyon Kernow stood a slate of candidates for the South West seat in the European Parliament. We polled 11,534 votes in Cornwall (7% of those cast).

Parties needed to achieve 2.5% of the vote to save their deposit of £5,000. However the powers-that-be refused to return our deposit even though we, as a Cornish Party, only campaigned in Cornwall achieved that percentage by a factor of three. Other parties such as the BNP standing and campaigning throughout the whole South West but achieving a lower percentage of the overall vote than ours in Cornwall, had theirs returned.

I do not know what share of the vote will be needed to save a candidate’s deposit this time around, but predict that there will be an arrangement that disadvantages MK and potential Cornish candidates.