Green Party abandons internal election over dirty tricks

Yesterday I a href="http://liberalengland.blogspot.com/2009/08/greens-throw-mud-in-internal-party.html"wrote about the contest/a to become the Green Party's external communications officer and the increasingly nasty tone it has been taking. Most of the nastiness seems to have come from supporters of Rupert Read, would-be Mr Clean of the recent Norwich by-election, and his running mate.br /br /This morning comes news that the party's executive has issued the following statement:br /blockquotepStatement from the electoral returning officer (ERO)/ppA contractor working with the party overstepped their authority by sending a message to all local parties making allegations against one of the candidates for External Communications Co-ordinator without that candidate having any possibility of a right to reply. I am treating this as illegal canvassing by that contractor./ppThis situation is so serious that it has prejudiced the fairness of the postal ballot for External Communications Co-ordinator./ppI refer all members to the following section in the Election rules:/pp5 Conduct of other party membersbr /5.1 Rules of conduct /ppThe ERO has no redress against members who are not candidates in the election. A candidate should not be disquali?ed due to the actions of another member, unless it is clear that member has acted with the approval of the candidate. However, if, in the opinion of the ERO, the actions of a third party may have materially affected the result of the election, the ERO may declare the election void./ppAs ERO, with the support of the Standing Orders Committee (SOC), I have taken the decision to call off the postal ballot for the position of External Communications Co-ordinator./ppThis was not a decision taken lightly./ppThe election for Chair of the Green party executive is not affected and will continue as normal./ppNominations for the position of External Communications Co-ordinator will re-open at conference, as for other GPEx positions where there were one or zero nominations./ppThere will be no campaigning allowed for the position of External Communications Co-ordinator until nominations close at conference.Valid candidates' nominations already submitted will still stand, unless they withdraw, but will be treated in the same way as valid nominations for any other position being re-opened at conference./ppThese decisions were made with the support of SOC./pp/pp/p/blockquoteThe executive also says it is taking legal advice over allegations made in the email.br /br /So much for the Green Party representing a clean new form of politics.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-7161079785249346594?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div

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