Leadership election: it begins

Nominations for the Green Party of England and Wales Executive open today. The main focus will naturally be on our first ever leader/deputy leader contest, and I'll be no exception to this, but almost as importantly is the rest of the GPEx team who'll oversea much of the work the party does over the next year.

These posts include Chair, Campaigns Co-ordinator, Elections Co-ordinator, External Communications Co-ordinator, Finance Co-ordinator, Management Co-ordinator, International Co-ordinator, Local Party Support Co-ordinator, Policy Development Co-ordinator, Publications Co-ordinator, Internal Communications Co-ordinator, Equality and Diversity Co-ordinator.

These are both practical and political posts. They need to be filled with real people rather than ideals, and those people need to be able to do the jobs assigned to them. It's not apolitical personalisation to accept that human beings have to fill these roles - but at the same time we need to look at the kind of political content that we want the Executive to contain. This goes twice over for the leader and deputy leader positions.

What kind of person should lead the Green Party? What politics should they embody? What would they say about the party and what direction would they steer us in? I've got my fingers crossed that there will be a competition. Last year saw one of the most contested GPEx elections for some time, I think that's healthy and I hope the trend continues. Let's see the members given a choice about how they want national office run, or our international relations, or what our publications are to say and look like.

By ensuring that a majority of these posts are contested we can bolster the internal democratic life of the party - and that's why I'm posting this here, it requires members to put themselves forwards for these roles to take hold of and shape the party they are a living, breathing part of.

If you've been a member for two years (or three for the leadership positions) perhaps you should be thinking of putting yourself forwards for one of these positions, it will give you the opportunity to raise those issues dear to your heart among the wider membership. Alternatively you may know of someone who would be ideal - encourage them to stand! You've got three weeks to make it happen.

The Timetable

• Nominations Open – 1 July 2008 09:00
• Nominations Close – 24 July 2008 14:00
• Ballot Papers Issued – By end of July 2008
• Leader/Deputy/Co-Leader Ballot closes after hustings at Conference on 5 September 2008
  
• Announcement of Leader/Deputy/Co-Leader Ballot – 6 September 2008
  
• Other GPEx Posts ballot closes after the hustings at Conference on 6 September 2008

Get in touch with Dean Walton for the relevant papers. You know it makes sense!

P.S. On a related matter it's just been pointed out to me that the first agenda for autumn conference is out here (pdf) and that members need to take part in the prioritisation ballot here to take part in the Party's unique system where the members decide what the most important sections are, not some committee or other. Deadline for prioritisation and amendments to motions is the 24th July.