Leadership contest good to go?

Over the past few days persistent rumours had surfaced that the UUP leadership election might be subject to a court injunction, possibly instigated by a supporter of Basil McCrea.  

Anxiety had been increasing over the issue of membership lists and in particular votes that were to be granted to new members, admitted to the party during an 'amnesty' in August.  

An emergency executive meeting had been planned to discuss the issue this Saturday, with the very real possibility of a postponement of next Wednesday's leadership election.  The fall-out for the party and its reputation would have been serious.  

It's now emerged that the threat of legal action has been withdrawn and the UUP's executive will no longer meet this Saturday.  So we must assume that the leadership election will proceed next week, as planned. 

That's good news for the party, if the confusion around membership has genuinely been settled to everyone's satisfaction.   

Comments

Ulster Liberal said…
I felt there was a contrast between the candidates on Hearts and Minds last night- McCrea was confident, clear spoken, self-assured and seems to have a grand vision for the future; Elliott was unclear, unconvincing and his message appeared cloudy. I don't see what Elliott offers other than continuation along the same failed path. It also seems to me like there would be the most minimal of difference between his UUP and the DUP. The DUP has impinged on traditional UUP territory since becoming the largest party and reigned in its more embarassing instincts to such an extent I'm not sure where the UUP can go. McCrea would bring a sense of fresh air to the party but after an initial honeymoon would come under fire from the McNarry's of this world for being too close to Alliance. The UUP needs a large dose of unity, at the moment it seems merely like a collection of messy coalitions. I don't know how you resolve these coalitions to work together: without being flippant I can't see what the future is besides the maintenance of the status quo (and hence the inevitable outcome of electoral oblivion) or a fundamental split.
17 September 2010 at 10:14
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