GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
And I suppose for both good and bad. Maybe the primary benefit is party unity.
However, for those of us familiar with the American system, as I am as a citizen, this aspect is a big difference between systems.
Question: in parliamentary system, party bosses pick candidates?
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However, for those of us familiar with the American system, as I am as a citizen, this aspect is a big difference between systems.
Picking candidates in parliamentary systems
It depends on the country I would think
In Britain the theory is that each party has a committee representing its members in each constituency and this committee picks the candidate. This is of course an oversimplification and Thande, Meadow and many others will no doubt fill in details
Generally the Party's Central organisation has a list of approved candidates. These are invited to apply and the local committee can make up a short list of these and possibly add a favoured local son or daughter. However, the central party can impose a favoured candidate itself, especially for a safe constituency and generally can guide the selection
Hope this simple view helps
It depends on the country I would think
In Britain the theory is that each party has a committee representing its members in each constituency and this committee picks the candidate. This is of course an oversimplification and Thande, Meadow and many others will no doubt fill in details
Generally the Party's Central organisation has a list of approved candidates. These are invited to apply and the local committee can make up a short list of these and possibly add a favoured local son or daughter. However, the central party can impose a favoured candidate itself, especially for a safe constituency and generally can guide the selection
Hope this simple view helps
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
And Gianna also worked long hours as a volunteer doing a variety of tasks, including going to rallies to help build crowds. That is, she established her bona fides.
But notice that she's establishing bona fides with fellow party members and party bosses, and not with voters at large.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
Thanks. And depending on how involved, energetic, and vocal local members are, this process can be either more or less democratic.
It very much depends on the system. Party list systems, particularly national lists, yeah, it happens the way you're imagining it. But here in Britain, each Constituency Labour Party or Conservative Association may choose it's own candidate from a list of approved candidates from the central headquarters. It's not a perfect fit, and candidates the leadership don't like do have a way of slipping off that list (as Theresa May's special advisers will tell you) but the idea that the leadership just picks candidates is far from the truth. Apart from anything, the parliamentary Conservative Party would not look the way it does if Cameron had chosen the candidates.
Depends on country. In Slovenia in principle local party comitee picks a candidate and party confirms it. There are some laws about women quota (or whatever it's called in English).
I'd say bigest difference is that at least in continental Europe there is much stronger party discipline and MPs are expected to vote along party line. Voting your own way is generally frowned upon and it signifies problems within the party.
I'd say bigest difference is that at least in continental Europe there is much stronger party discipline and MPs are expected to vote along party line. Voting your own way is generally frowned upon and it signifies problems within the party.
Riain
Banned
In Australia political parties have branches and these branches preselect the candidates. My mate went through the process, his branch was about 110 people and there were about 5 or 6 candidates who were in lockdown while the votes were undertaken.
The upshot is that he won preselection, quit his job and moved house to campaign full time then lost the election and now he's debt ridden and totally fucked. Watching it pan out for him makes me think I'd never do it.
The upshot is that he won preselection, quit his job and moved house to campaign full time then lost the election and now he's debt ridden and totally fucked. Watching it pan out for him makes me think I'd never do it.
In Germany the top candidates are elected by the federal political convention, where the delegates are elected by the lower county or state (depending on party) groups of the party. They are not elected solely for that decision though, party offices and political course changes are also debated by them.
I don't think this has been the case for decades. Whilst I can only speak of my experience in the Labour Party, I believe it is similar in the other parties:
People send applications to the CLP Executive Committee. They can in theory be denied at this stage, but doing this requires evident total unsuitability in practice.
There are hustings for the branches and affiliate branches. Any candidate that can't get at least one to nominate them (and IIUC each can only nominate one) doesn't get onto the shortlist.
(In by-elections, the shortlist is drawn up by the NEC, which is more willing to exclude people than CLP Execs usually are, as by-election candidates are more high-profile and thus potentially more embarrassing for the party).
Final hustings and all-member ballot (with postal votes allowed).
It varies a lot, and what the electoral system is doesn't really make much difference - one Australian state Labour branch has them essentially selected by the state exec IIUC, with single-member constituencies, whilst Iceland has List PR and mostly uses primaries.
Personally I like the system used I think most often in Norway - (for party list) a committee draws up a draft list, and a constituency party conference votes on it position by position.
It's also worth remembering it varies plenty in presidential systems too........
Thinking about it, I think the Lib Dems and Conservatives do have official central lists, but we certainly don't, at least officially.
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It doesn't always, even for national lists. In the national-list system I'm most familiar with, Israel, both Labor and Likud pick most of their lists through primaries in which all party members (some of whom might join the party right before the primary for that purpose only) are eligible to vote, with certain spots reserved for women, minorities and sectors of society. The leaders usually do get several places on the list they can fill with their own candidates, though, and merger deals between parties can also affect places on the list.
I believe Habayit Yehudi (may its name be erased) used a similar primary system this year.
Other parties might choose their list by vote of the central committee, by the party leader's autocratic choice, or (in the case of Shas and UTJ) by councils of rabbis affiliated with the party. There's really no one way to do it.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
I'm sorry your friend ended up in a bad situation. At the very least, the party should have leveled with him about his chances of winning. And I think that without corruption they could at least do something to help him find a new job. They could just be honest that transitional services including a professional job search firm is something they pay for, that it's something they make available for former officeholders and candidates, something like this.
In that case, you'd be witnessing a somewhat better story about the party.
Riain
Banned
It was a strange case, there was a boundary redistribution that made the seat into notionally a marginal one so in theory he had a good shot, certainly that was the word up until very close to the election. IN addition he already a Councillor so had a profile of sorts and some political experience. But his main job required him to quit on the proviso that they would hire him back if he lost, which also gave him the time to campaign and doorknock full time. However he isn't a wealthy person so for 6 months he wasn't earning his major income and had to use credit for his hefty personal expenses. In the event the Ambulance, Fire Brigade and Nurses mounted a campaign against the government and there was a big swing against his party and he got flogged, so was left with nothing for his efforts despite the fact that the consensus was that he did everything he could to win.
As for the Party, they're just a bunch of politically-minded geeks and old people. So while he raised $145,000 for his campaign (against a target of $120,000) he got bugger all for it, after all winners are grinners and losers can please themselves.
It's not actually all that strange, but a fairly common story. I'm sure your friend ran the best campaign he could, like you say, but the overwhelming majority voters are not voting on the local issues, but the big picture ones. A swag of good Queensland MPs lost their jobs on Saturday because they were part of a government that was on the nose. That's a parliamentary democracy for you. Guessing your friend ran in Victoria?
Hmm, well that's how some characterise the conservative parties, but, being one of those politically-minded geeks, I agree that there is a real issue for political parties in how they prepare candidates for failure and help them pick themselves up after. From personal experience, I will say that while all candidates are different, it's never easy helping them.
Oh, what his fundraising got him was the best campaign he could run. There's some consolation in losing when you know you've done everything you reasonably could.
Thanks
I'd forgotten about the need for a candidate in it to get nominations from CLP branches. Don't think that applies to the Tories or LibDems. No idea what UKIP do, perhaps they don't either
thanks for the corrections and elaboration regarding Labour Party selection procedures.
I'd forgotten about the need for a candidate in it to get nominations from CLP branches. Don't think that applies to the Tories or LibDems. No idea what UKIP do, perhaps they don't either
As most people here said: it's different in every country. I' wouldn't be surprised if the most important thing were not so much whether or not a country has a parliamentary or a presidential system, but rather single-member or multi-member constituencies - the first one enabling a large role for the local membership, the second enhancing the role of the central party leadership.
Also, even within a country, some parties may have a different method of selecting their candidates than others.
Also, even within a country, some parties may have a different method of selecting their candidates than others.
Perhaps I can give some insight on how things work here in Sweden, or more specifically in the Social Democratic Party which I'm active in. In Sweden we use a party list form of proportional representation where parties decide the order in which candidates are ranked on the list, but voters can give a preference vote to a single candidate and with enough of those votes he or she can climb to the top of the list.
In the Social Democrats local Social Democratic clubs (S-clubs, usually based on geographic locations but can also be youth/student associations) put together their own nomination lists by holding a membership meeting and having them vote on the composition of the list. However there is a national policy in the party to alternate between men and women in the lists order and have 25% of the candidates be under the age of 35 if possible. The S-club's proposal is then sent on to the municipal level Social Democratic assocation, called a Arbetarekommun (Worker's Commune). There a nomination committee comprised of a smaller group of members (maybe 8-15 or so) who take a look at all the list proposals from the S-clubs and try to find a balance between them and then present a final proposal at the Worker's Commune's nomination meeting with representatives from all S-clubs. The nomination committee's proposal usually doesn't face any truly strong challenge except for perhaps some old geezers who feel slighted by not ending up on it or being placed too far down. "I've put in 50 years of good service to this party, blah, blah , blah", you get the idea. When the nomination meeting decides upon a list it is then sent on to the Party District which covers the local county who also have a nomination committee that tries to find a balance between all the list proposals from the Worker's Commune level. That nomination committee then present their proposed list at a District Conference with representatives from all Worker's Communes who then vote on the list, and when it's approved it's all done since county borders correspond to constituency boundaries, with a few rare exceptions.
It may sound like a slow and unnecessarily complicated process with all those different meetings and the nomination committees, but there's actually a good reason for this as it makes entrism and careerism more difficult. There's actually an anecdote about this from the district I'm active in. Ahead of the 1998 election a man named Jabar Amin became active in the Social Democrats and around the time that the round of nomination meetings started up he went around to all the different S-clubs in the city and talked about the importance of more diversity on the list, something that all of them thought sounded good and quite reasonable. So when the clubs then started putting together their lists he ended up being included on most of them but often far down on the list because he was a new member who had only recently joined the party and naturally the clubs weren't going to give their first preference to a mostly unknown person. But because almost all S-clubs nominated him he ended up with by far the most nominations, however of course the nomination committee found this quite fishy and noticed that almost all clubs had put him at the bottom of their preference list. Therefore he ended up towards the bottom of the proposed list, which didn't sit quite right with him since he had the most nominations. But things were then put to a vote and he lost overwhelmingly to the nomination committee's proposal.
He left the party in a huff and a few years later joined the Green Party which uses a single membership meeting to decide their list. So he shows up with a few dozen of his friends and family on the day of the nomination meeting who immediately join the party, because in the Greens you can join on the day of the nomination meeting and then have a vote. With the support of his friends he ends up on the top of the list because they all outnumbered the rest of the people at the meeting, and today he is a member of parliament for that very party. Funny how things work out.
In the Social Democrats local Social Democratic clubs (S-clubs, usually based on geographic locations but can also be youth/student associations) put together their own nomination lists by holding a membership meeting and having them vote on the composition of the list. However there is a national policy in the party to alternate between men and women in the lists order and have 25% of the candidates be under the age of 35 if possible. The S-club's proposal is then sent on to the municipal level Social Democratic assocation, called a Arbetarekommun (Worker's Commune). There a nomination committee comprised of a smaller group of members (maybe 8-15 or so) who take a look at all the list proposals from the S-clubs and try to find a balance between them and then present a final proposal at the Worker's Commune's nomination meeting with representatives from all S-clubs. The nomination committee's proposal usually doesn't face any truly strong challenge except for perhaps some old geezers who feel slighted by not ending up on it or being placed too far down. "I've put in 50 years of good service to this party, blah, blah , blah", you get the idea. When the nomination meeting decides upon a list it is then sent on to the Party District which covers the local county who also have a nomination committee that tries to find a balance between all the list proposals from the Worker's Commune level. That nomination committee then present their proposed list at a District Conference with representatives from all Worker's Communes who then vote on the list, and when it's approved it's all done since county borders correspond to constituency boundaries, with a few rare exceptions.
It may sound like a slow and unnecessarily complicated process with all those different meetings and the nomination committees, but there's actually a good reason for this as it makes entrism and careerism more difficult. There's actually an anecdote about this from the district I'm active in. Ahead of the 1998 election a man named Jabar Amin became active in the Social Democrats and around the time that the round of nomination meetings started up he went around to all the different S-clubs in the city and talked about the importance of more diversity on the list, something that all of them thought sounded good and quite reasonable. So when the clubs then started putting together their lists he ended up being included on most of them but often far down on the list because he was a new member who had only recently joined the party and naturally the clubs weren't going to give their first preference to a mostly unknown person. But because almost all S-clubs nominated him he ended up with by far the most nominations, however of course the nomination committee found this quite fishy and noticed that almost all clubs had put him at the bottom of their preference list. Therefore he ended up towards the bottom of the proposed list, which didn't sit quite right with him since he had the most nominations. But things were then put to a vote and he lost overwhelmingly to the nomination committee's proposal.
He left the party in a huff and a few years later joined the Green Party which uses a single membership meeting to decide their list. So he shows up with a few dozen of his friends and family on the day of the nomination meeting who immediately join the party, because in the Greens you can join on the day of the nomination meeting and then have a vote. With the support of his friends he ends up on the top of the list because they all outnumbered the rest of the people at the meeting, and today he is a member of parliament for that very party. Funny how things work out.
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Although in my experience there was only ever the one candidate so you were effectively a rubber stamp.
That sort of thing is why we don't let you vote until you've been a member six months (?) or if you're in arrears with your membership fees in Labour in the UK. I guess you do something similar?