Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-12-Speech-1-065-000"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2012-03-12"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Equality between women and men in the European Union - 2011 - Women in political decision-making (debate)2
dcterms:Language	"en"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20120312.17.1-065-000"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2012-03-12-Speech-1-066-0002
lpv:speaker	lp:Andrew Henry William Brons2
lpv:spoken text	"Madam President, totalitarians who might be shy about interfering with the elective process can still do so indirectly by controlling the selection process by which candidates are chosen; that was the essence of democratic centralism in the Soviet Union. The call for quotas and for prescriptions of rank order is in danger of constructing a formula that is so prescriptive that the real selection decision is taken by the formula deviser and not by the political party. In a democracy, political parties are private organisations and are not creatures of the state; they must be free to decide who should represent them as candidates without state interference. It is for the electorate to decide whether or not it likes the candidates and not for the government to do so. Parties, in my view, should decide candidates on merit, and neither on the basis of discrimination nor on the basis of quotas. But in the end that is their business. Prescribing rank order, of course, is possible only in closed-list systems. How long will it be before the voter in open-list systems is forced to cast high-preference votes for both male and female candidates regardless of party and to cast appropriate percentages of the vote for various approved minorities? Perhaps in the end the poor voter will have the right only to cast a ballot paper that has already been completed by affirmative action or positive discrimination. This drive for quotas has little to do with women’s rights and everything to do with an obsessive desire that no part of the political system should be free from control by the political class."@en1
lpv:spokenAs	member; NA (2009-07-14--2014-06-30)3 substitute; LIBE (2012-01-19--2014-06-30)3 unknown; British National Party (2009-07-14--2012-10-16)3 member; AFCO (2012-01-19--2014-06-30)3 member; Delegation to the EU-Croatia Joint Parliamentary Committee (2009-09-16--2013-06-30)3
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata	"Andrew Henry William Brons (NI ). -"1
lpv:videoURI	<go to Events_and_structure europarl>2

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