Charles Kennedy resigns as Liberal Democrat leader

Two days after he publicly acknowledged his drinking problem and called a leadership election, Charles Kennedy resigned as leader of Britain's Liberal Democrat party.

Kennedy had said he would stand for reelection, but about half of his front bench (Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet) had said they would not serve under him going forward. After a couple of days of reflection, he decided his position was untenable. Deputy party leader Sir Menzies Campbell (a former Olympic runner) will serve as leader in the interregnum.

The executive committee of the party will be meeting soon to organize the election for a new leader. The Liberal Democrat system calls for a vote (I would guess by mail) by all the 70,000-odd dues paying members of the party, using a "transferrable vote," or instant run-off, system. In an instant run-off system, the voter votes by ranking the candidates; the candidates' "number one" votes are totaled and the candidate getting the least such votes is dropped; the ballots which rank the dropped candidate "number one" have their votes redistributed to the people voted "number two" on those ballots; and this process is continued until one person has a majority.

Before Kennedy resigned, no one had announced that they would oppose him. Now, Campbell is so far the only one to announce, but there are several other likely suspects. From the looks of it, it may settle into a battle between the social liberal (big state) and the libertarian (small state) wings of the party.

Posted: Sat - January 7, 2006 at 02:40 PM

getBlogName(); > getCategoryName("C925187820"); >

Charles Kennedy resigns as Liberal Democrat leader

> >