Leadership races are always interesting no matter what party you belong to. They present themselves as a time for renewal and a time to attract new people into the process that maybe haven’t been involved before or awhile.
Additionally, the goal should (and must be) to attract the best and the brightest to get involved not only to lead the party from backbenches, or no benches, but to also attract the best and brightest people into a leadership role in their community.
To get the best and brightest fundraising should be in place as should a good set of policies. Then a leadership race can begin with the best person hopefully chosen as Leader.
It seems common sense, but then nothing should ever be taken for grant, and so I also say that a leaders job is to undertake to increase fundraising, further develop policy, and no matter what the party standing is in the house, hold the current government accountable.
If the party has seats in the house ,questions should be asked, and scrums should be held, with the media ensuring that all the people are represented. Should the party not be in the house, they can hold the government accountable by press releases, social media releases,radio interviews, or even traveling to the House and arranging media meetings outside house when a relevant issue arises etc.
The success of this all revolves around leadership, and that means as I said earlier, having the right leader and the right policies in place to get the job done. This is easier said than done.
A recent review the the BC Conservative constitution ( provincial party) shows this:
Section 11.02 The Leader can only be removed from office by resignation, death, incapacitation, or the
vote of sixty percent (60%) of the Party Members in good standing who vote in a
universal mail-in ballot.
Another way of saying this is that once a leader is elected he or she only needs 40 % of the current members to vote in favor of his or her leadership role to stay in the job. That seems to me to be setting the bar awfully low. It means that a leader would only have to get a few people to vote to save his or her job especially if the party or it’s members is disillusioned.
The question to ask my readers is what do you think the correct percentage is in order to attract talent and correct mistakes in the leadership process?