}

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Political surprises

I was running errands this afternoon, and when I got home I saw that my new Labour Party membership card had arrived in the mail. I took the photo above so I could Tweet it. When I went to my computer to post the Tweet, I saw the news that Labour Party Leader David Shearer had resigned. It turns out, these two bits of news are connected.

As a Labour Party member, I may have a say in who the next leader of the party will be. Under current rules, 40% of the vote comes from the Labour Caucus in Parliament, 40% from the membership and 20% from unions. I’m not certain how long someone has to be a paid-up member before they can participate in the selection process, so that’s part of the reason I’m not sure if I’ll have a say or not.

The bigger reason, however, is that it’s entirely possible that Caucus will settle on one candidate, meaning no selection process will be necessary. It’s far too early to tell.

Whether I have an official say or not, I’m certain I’ll have an opinion. However, at this point I don’t know who I’d prefer. This should be interesting… for me, anyway.

2 comments:

Benk said...

Go Arthur! After Labour made the change to how leaders are chosen, I got as far as thinking about joining the party. But you actually did it! I'll be interested to hear how the mechanics of having your say works.

Arthur (AmeriNZ) said...

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to having an up-close look at the process. I may have finished my formal studies of politics, but I still like learning how processes actually work!