Electoral Commission Concerns over 'Independents' - 11/08/08

The Electoral Commission has produced a comprehensive report on May's county council elections.  Welcoming the publication, Plaid Cllr Dyfrig Thomas said that the Commission's report highlighted some of the concerns expressed by Plaid over the behaviour of so-called 'Independent' councillors.
Cllr Thomas, Plaid's deputy leader on Carmarthenshire County Council, said, "Before the election, we raised the issue of how voters would know which candidates were genuinely independent, and which would become part of the Independent Group.  The Commission has clearly recognised the potential for a lack of clarity.  It seems it wasn't only Plaid that raised this as an issue – several genuinely independent candidates felt that it was difficult for them to distinguish themselves from an independent group."

The Commission's report also highlighted explicitly the advertisement placed in Carmarthenshire newspapers by the independent group, saying that the advert 'begs the question for voters as to whether the advertisement was placed on behalf of all independent candidates standing for election in the county or a group of them'.

Cllr Thomas added, "This is precisely the point which we raised at the time.  The advertisement was confusing, both in terms of which candidates it was supporting and who was responsible for it.  We need changes in the electoral rules to prevent people acting as though they were a political party whilst avoiding all the controls placed on genuine parties."

The Commission's full report is available here: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk...

Paragraphs 5.36 – 5.51 are extracted below:

5.46 More independent candidates were elected in May 2008 than candidates from any single political party; along with those from minor, locally based parties, there were 370 such candidates. For a number of years, there have been councils in Wales where independent candidates have been in political control or in a significant minority position. The position of such groups, along with candidates from minor parties, increased in significance in 2008. The outcome of the elections in May 2008 resulted in 18 out of 22 councils with no overall control. After post-election coalition deals were struck, Independents had overall control of two councils and led, or were junior coalition partners on, a total of 16 councils.

5.47 In this scenario, it was unsurprising that the campaigning activities of independent candidates in some areas resulted in comments to the Commission, from candidates, representatives of political parties and from members of the public.

5.48 The comments and queries concerned the legal position of independent candidates, in particular those who had previously formed an independent group in the previous council and were campaigning as a group. There is no prohibition on independent candidates working as a group during an election period, neither is there any obligation on political groupings to register with the Commission as a political party. The Commission is required to monitor the compliance of election candidates with the controls on election campaign spending21 but is not in a position to interfere with the organisation of a group with regard to campaign techniques.

5.49 However, it is important that independent candidates are not perceived to be standing as a group to campaign in an election, without registering as a political party, in order to avoid the regulatory regime in the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 that applies to political parties.

5.50 We recognise the potential for lack of clarity about the position of independents during an election period. This is especially the case when attempting to differentiate between independents who do work as a campaigning group, and those who are simply individual candidates independent of any political affiliation or grouping. We had complaints from individual independent candidates that if there is an ‘independent group’ it is very difficult for others to distinguish themselves from that group.