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Being
a politician, I would of course like you to vote Green. If you are
voting for me because I am Chinese, that's great. Even better if you
want to vote Green because you believe in what the Green Party says
about how people should live in harmony with each other and equally
importantly, about the quality of the planet we leave our children and
grand children. About affordable homes, support for small businesses
and green transport for example. But even if you do not vote Green, the important thing is for you to vote.
There are three good reasons for Chinese people to voting.
- Firstly
if Chinese people have a reputation for not voting politicians will be
less inclined to listen to the Chinese community when it comes to
election time. To put it crudely, politicians can treat Chinese people
like children when it comes to elections. They need to be aware of
their needs but do not need to go out of their way to win their vote.
- Secondly,
it is our civic duty to vote. Representative democracies like that in
the UK is far from perfect, but alternatives like dictatorships are far
worse. If you don't vote can you complain if your elected
representatives do something you do not like?
- Finally,
the Chinese are here to stay and we should be represented in all walks
of life including politics. If we do not vote, we could find ourselves
represented by people we do not want. Even for example the BNP, who
definitely do not have the good of the Chinese and other ethnic
minorities in mind.
How to vote in the London election
This election a bit complicated because you have three ballot papers. Starting with the simplest first.
The
first is for the constituency candidate where you should put a cross in
the box next to the person you want to vote for. The person with the
most votes wins this ballot. The
second is for the Party list which covers the whole of London. People
are elected from the list depending on the percentage of people who
vote for a given party.
The
final one is for the Mayor where you will be putting a cross for your
first choice candidate and another cross for your second choice. The
last two are perhaps the most important, especially for me, as I am on
the Green Party List. This list vote is especially important of ethnic
minorities because the British National Party who want to keep Britain
white have a chance of winning here. Because the way the election works
is complex, probably the best vote to keep the BNP out would be a vote
for Lib-Dems or the Greens.
As
far as the Mayor vote is concerned, the main candidates are Sian Berry
for the Greens, Brian Piddick for the Lib Dems, Ken Livingston for
Labour and Boris Johnson for the Conservatives. There
will be two counts. First count to see if any one gets more than 50% of
the first choice votes. If no one gets over 50%, all candidates except
the two leading candidates are removed and their second choice votes
are counted. The winner will be the candidate who gets more than 50% of
the first and second choice votes.
Opinion
polls show that the leading candidates are Ken Livingston or Boris
Johnson, but that they are not expected to get over 50% of the first
choice votes so there will be a second count. This means that voters
can show which party they really like with their first choice and their
second choice will also count to help another candidate get elected or
help stop a candidate they do not want to be elected. An
example of this is the electoral pact between the Greens and Labour,
where Greens are asking for the first choice vote to got to the Green
candidate Sian Berry and asking that the second choice vote to go to
the Labour candidate Ken Livingston. Personally, this is the what I am
going to do as I do not want Boris Johnson to be Mayor.
Chit Chong
Green Party Speaker for Future Generations and London Assembly List Candidate
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