Meeting to appoint a new Chief Minister
23 January 2024
On Thursday 25 January, the States Assembly will convene at 9.30am to appoint a new Chief Minister. The meeting will take place in the States Chamber and is open for the public to attend, as well as being broadcast live via Public-I.
All States Members, including the three candidates - Deputy Mézec, Deputy Farnham and Deputy Gorst, will attend the start of the meeting for roll call. Following the adoption of P3/2024 last week, Members are permitted to attend this meeting remotely via a Teams link, although all three candidates are due to be in the Chamber.
Speeches and question time
Each candidate can speak for up to ten minutes, followed by up to one hour of questions from fellow members of the Assembly. To determine the order in which the candidates give their speeches and answer questions, the Presiding Officer will draw lots.
Candidates cannot be present or have access to each other's speeches or question time. When one candidate is giving their speech and being questioned, the other candidates will leave the Chamber.
Voting
The candidates will return to the Chamber for voting. There will be a paper ballot where Members vote for one candidate or abstain. The results of how each States Member voted will be made public via a news story on the States Assembly website.
If one of the three candidates receives more than half of the votes cast, they will become Chief Minister Designate. If not, the two candidates receiving the highest number of votes will go through to a second round and States Members will use the electronic voting system to vote for their preferred remaining candidate (or they can choose to abstain). Any abstentions do not count as votes cast.
The candidate who receives more than half of the votes cast in this second round will then become Chief Minister Designate and will formally take up their role the following week, once all of the Ministers have also been appointed by the Assembly.
More information about the appointment of Ministers can be found here or the latest episode of the States Assembly podcast, explaining the appointment process, can be found here.
Members joining the meeting remotely will be able to vote via a Teams message, which will be relayed to Assembly when the vote outcomes are announced.
A notification of when each candidate begins their speech and the results of the vote will be shared on the States Assembly X (formerly Twitter) page throughout the meeting. A summary of the meeting will be shared at the end of the day on the news section of the States Assembly website.
