Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez will be nominated for the Presidency of Policy and Resources when the new States vote on it next week.
She confirmed to Express this morning that she has decided to act on the encouragement of numerous other people and be put forward for the role.
“I was asked to consider it by a lot of people, but what I was surprised by was the range of people who approached me,” she said.
The calls for her to stand for election as P&R President have come from all corners she said, “both within the Assembly, former colleagues, and in the community”.
“What I’ve been really encouraged by is that those conversations do seem to all be about getting it right for the island and not about peoples’ personal aspirations,” she added.
Deputy de Sausmarez wasn’t always going to stand for the P&R Presidency but has made up her mind to almost a week after coming top of the polls in Guernsey’s second island wide election.
She is one of 18 current Deputies re-elected to the States, alongside three returning former Deputies and 17 newcomers.
Deputy de Sausmarez is confident she can lead the new Assembly as P&R President if a majority of them back her next week.
“Fundamentally it’s about getting the tone of this assembly right and I think there’s a real desire to do that, which I can see in the overall election results, to get things done.
“That’s something in the way in which I like to work, and I think I have a fairly good track record and I could add value in that respect,” she said.
If she is elected by her peers as P&R President, then Deputy de Sausmarez will be the first woman to take on the role.
There’s already been a Vice-President of P&R – Deputy Heidi Soulsby – but Deputy de Sausmarez isn’t yet thinking who she might propose for that role or any other seat on P&R.
“It’s a little bit premature,” she said.
“There are lots of conversations happening and it’s important to understand what people want to do and the dynamic is really important. It’s about making sure you’re looking at those considerations in the round.”
Deputy de Sausmarez isn’t guaranteed to be on P&R herself anyway with the States of Deliberation – Guernsey’s 38 deputies and Alderney’s two representatives – voting for the President, and other committee presidents and members, between them.
Express understands that Deputies Jonathan Le Tocq, Mark Helyar, and Charles Parkinson are all likely to be nominated for the P&R presidency too.
Of those front runners for a four-way election battle, Deputy Le Tocq has told Express that he also believes the focus needs to be on bringing the Assembly together after a troubled 2020-25 term.
“Obviously, my focus has been on external relations, but I’m conscious of the fact that we’ve had two terms, the last term was particularly fractious and didn’t start well, both the last terms have started with a degree of that, and I think we do need to steady the ship and make sure that we start with the right sort of consensus attitude of being willing to listen to one another, work together, being pragmatic, and that has been my modus operandi, which is probably why I’ve been in external relations and negotiations for a long time.
“I find one of the things I can do is bring people together who sometimes have opposing views, find a compromise, find a degree of consensus, and then help them move forward.
“Somebody said ‘you’re not really an ideas man’, well I do have some ideas, but what I do feel is it’s not so much ideas that we need in our system of government, it’s someone who can bring those ideas together effectively, and people that have those ideas can then find the way in which they can work together and then help deliver them.”
Deputy Gavin St Pier had been in the running as well but has intimated to Deputy de Sausmarez that he will support her candidacy instead.
Deputy Neil Inder is one of the more experienced States Members in the new Assembly but he’s ruled himself out, as has Father of the House Deputy John Gollop.
The election for P&R President will take place on 1 July, after the new Assembly has been sworn in.
Any candidates have to be nominated and seconded by another Deputy before they make a pitch for the job themselves.
There could then be a series of secret ballots, with a candidate knocked out each time, until one candidate has received a majority of votes.
The members of P&R will be nominated by the new President, with counter nominations from the floor, before being voted on later next week.
The elections for the other committee presidents and members will follow that.