A
leadership election was held for the Patagonian Labour Party from 11 December to 14 December 2019, with a
deputy leadership election being held concurrently. Following the landslide defeat of the Labour Party in the 2019 federal election, where the previous leader and incumbent prime minister Theresa Boshnyak lost her own seat to Progressive candidate Max Kirchner, the Labour Party was left leaderless. The deputy leader, Dave Byrd, who had retained his seat, was appointed leader
ad interim until a leadership election could be held.
At the beginning of the leadership race, the two frontrunners were considered to be former cabinet ministers
Richard Alfonsin and
Ciro Sandoval. Alfonsin, who is also the son of former prime minister Ralph Foulkes Alfonsin, represented the centrist wing of the party which Prime Minister Boshnyak had also come from. Sandoval was largely seen as representing "soft left" wing of the party, which was left as the furthest left part of the party after much of the "hard left" had split and formed the Progressive Party. The other leadership candidates recognized by the Labour caucus were
Chauncey Johns, who had served in several cabinet positions under prime ministers Price, Gillard, and Boshnyak and had been considered a potential future PM for years, as well as interim leader
Dave Byrd, celebrity TV presenter-turned-politician
Zane Ryser, and newly elected backbench MP
Rachel Ashton, who was primarily known for her previous status as a rising star within the New Monmouthshire House of Delegates. The only candidate to come forward for the deputy leadership was backbench MP
Ellen Lonchar, who would go on to be elected to the position unopposed.
In the first round of the leadership race, Alfonsin and Sandoval would tie for first place, each garnering 5 votes out of the 18 Labour MPs. Deputy PM candidate Ellen Lonchar, who had been predicted to vote for Sandoval, surprised most observers by instead voting for Ashton, who would've otherwise only gained the votes of herself and one other MP. Johns only gained his own vote and was thereby eliminated.
In the second round, all the MPs voted the same as the first round with the exception of Johns, who gave his vote to Ryser. Byrd, who only garnered 2 votes, came in last place and was thereby eliminated.
In the third round, Byrd and his sole other supporter within parliament shifted their votes to Alfonsin. Additionally, Ashton convinced Johns to switch his vote from Ryser to her. Ryser was reduced to two votes, came in last place, and was thereby eliminated.
In the fourth round, Ryser, who was expected to endorse Sandoval, instead endorsed Ashton, causing his votes to go to her. Sandoval, once considered one of the two frontrunners in the race, came in last place and was thereby eliminated.
In the fifth and final round, Sandoval endorsed the ideologically similar Ashton, who would go on to defeat Alfonsin for the leadership with eleven votes to Alfonsin's seven. Ashton and Lonchar would be formally inaugurated as Leader and Deputy Leader, respectively, the following day.
Melanie Rachel Ashton, commonly known as
Rachel Ashton, is a Patagonian politician who is the current Leader of the Labour Party since 15 December 2019. She was born in 1986 to Sarah (née Levin-Ford) Drystan Ashton. Through her British-born maternal grandmother she is of partial Jewish heritage, and is fifth cousins thrice removed with former Vice President of the United States
Sander Levin and former Governor of Michigan
Carl Levin, as well as the former Levin's son
Andy Levin, who currently serves as United States Senator from Michigan. Ashton entered politics at a relatively early age, being elected to the New Monmouthshire House of Delegates in 2011. She quickly became known as a rising star, and was considered a likely provincial cabinet pick, until the incumbent Premier Cadell Evans lost reelection in 2016 to Shayna Bloch, the daughter of former federal prime minister Mark Bloch, and her New Monmouthshire Reform Party. Ashton would become a major figure in the provincial opposition until her election to the federal House of Commons in 2019, being the only freshman Labour MP elected that year. Shortly afterwards she would be elected Labour leader in an upset, becoming the youngest Labour leader in history.