The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies by Pilet Jean-Benoit Cross William

Author:Pilet, Jean-Benoit, Cross, William
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Notes

1 The BE is not included in the table since party statutes do not officially recognise the figure of party leader.

2 In 2012 the party congress approved the adoption of a run-off majority system but the statutory change and the specific electoral rule for leadership selection have not been formulated yet.

The second aspect deals with deselection procedures. Only right-wing parties have established regulations for deselecting the party leader. In the PSD, for example, old statutes stipulated that the congress was responsible for leadership review. This means that delegates had the chance to evaluate the party leader and to force his retirement. The only case of deselection in Portuguese parties took place in 1985. In that year the PSD national commission approved a motion of censure against the party leader, Mota Pinto, leading to his resignation. However, this rule was abolished in the 1986 statutory revision.

The CDS-PP introduced the possibility of the national council voting a motion of confidence against the main executive body in 1996. The motion had to be approved with two-thirds majority in order to force the retirement of party leadership. Therefore, the party leader was not directly accountable to the main deliberative bodies, rather there was a collegial responsibility. In the remaining parties, statutes completely omit this procedure, meaning that de facto deselection only takes place on a voluntary basis, when the party leader decides to step down. This is what has happened in the Portuguese experience. Party leaders have withdrawn before the end of their term usually after an electoral defeat, a scandal or internal conflicts. Voluntary early deselection has been the rule for left parties (with the exception of Jorge Sampaio), while right party leaders have more often been forced to resign through electoral contests, especially when in opposition.

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