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24th November 2009 10:59 | by Eric Priezkalns
Given my confidence that the ‘trial’ will be a complete success, my mind turns to what comes next: the first genuine internal election where members will select Officers of the party. Two positions are up for election. Those are for the party’s Treasurer and Nominating Officer. Assuming no last-minute glitches, we will start the elections as soon as the result is called on the current ratification vote. That means we need to determine the deadline for nominations now.
Candidates for the role of Nominating Officer or Treasurer need to put themselves forward by midnight on Sunday 29th November. The call for candidates was announced on the forum weeks ago, and was reiterated in the blog and email informing members of the current ratification vote. I hope that by announcing the deadline, we encourage prospective candidates to make themselves known immediately, instead of delaying to see who else will be in the race. In short, if you want to stand for either role, nominate yourself now. To stand, let me know at eric.priezkalns{at}pirateparty.org.uk.
Two candidates have already put themselves forward for Nominating Officer: John Barron and Jeremy Morton. I have just received a first nomination for the role of Treasurer, from Peter Liddell; you may have noticed that Pete was one of my picks for Deputy Treasurer so I am pleased to see someone like him stepping up and offering to take on the role I am vacating. If you want to stand for the role of Treasurer or Nominating Officer, do your fellow members a favour by letting them know sooner rather than later. By doing so, you give members the chance to ask questions and this will help them to make their decision. It is the democratic and transparent thing to do – so do not delay!
5 comments
I must be impartial about the elections. That does not confer a special right for any candidate to make demands of my time, or to expect preferential treatment for their proposals. The exec is interested to hear opinions that represent the members as a whole. That begins with building consensus. So far I have only seen two forum posts supportive of your proposal. That leaves it ranking below my current tasks, such as assisting Rob Howson with the party's unconference, chasing with Diarmuid Clarke the contract for merchandise, my routine and recurring work as Treasurer and the extra job I undertook to oversee internal elections. When I stand down as Treasurer, my remaining priority will be handing over to my successor.
My post was about internal elections and I do not want to see that being hijacked. I hope that both candidates will be running a campaign revolving around how they would perform the role of Nominating Officer, not issues that are peripheral to the job.
Can we have some background information on the candidates for the roles we're voting on? How can we possibly approve someone as "the right man for the job" if we don't know anything about them?
It is up to the candidates to use the party's main communication resources - the forum and IRC - to take the lead in making themselves known to voters and to run their own election campaigns. The current candidates have already posted to the forums to give their respective bios. I encourage members to use those same resources to ask questions. Prior to nominations being closed, it would be unfair to any late nominees to use other channels, like email, to highlight who is standing.
I'll be posting a seperate bio for the tresurer position in the next few days.
Pete
Eric, please would you (and the exec) also address the proposal for member-initiated votes at the same time as the new officer elections. The latter were scheduled for January anyway.