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Disenfranchised of Dhekelia

Read about the trials and tribulations of running Y Vote Mock Election...in Cyprus

Can British servicemen who are working abroad for their country have a say in how that country is run? In theory yes, but in practice……. It’s difficult!

We are a small secondary school on British Sovereign land in Cyprus which caters for the children of service personnel and supporting civilians based here. The school is run by a MOD agency called Service Children’s Education (SCE). As such the school is like any other state secondary school in the UK which enables our pupils to transfer in and out with as little disruption to their education as possible.

The mock election that we ran on May 5th was planned to encourage our pupils to be more involved in what was going on ‘back home’ and to understand how the democratic system works in the UK. Year 10 students became candidates for the four main parties; Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens.

Some lessons were dedicated to learning about the electoral process and identifying the issues that affected our pupils. What was the party line on Iraq? Which party was going to spend money on improving housing for service personnel overseas? Were tuition fees at university going to be increased, pegged or scrapped? What about the SAT’s? After the hustings the playground gossip revolved around these sorts of issues.

The outcome was never in doubt! The Liberal Democrats won by a huge majority over the Conservatives and the Greens with Labour trailing in fourth place. Our results were emailed to Hansard but unfortunately cannot be included as we do not fit into a constituency. This mirrors exactly why many adults working here were unable to vote in the real election!

Overall our election proved to be a great success, raising awareness in both pupils and parents. After hearing the interview on British forces radio with Headteacher Les Jamieson, parents realised why their children suddenly seemed very knowledgeable and opinionated about certain election issues!