Candidate Selection Procedure in the US and the EU

In the U.S., a candidate is selected by a primary, a caucus, or a convention. In contrast, there is a closed inter-party system in much of the EU. There is some voting by the membership on the final selection of the candidate but none from the general public.

Cartel parties and their selection procedures

This type of political party is essentially a party built around candidates and so it is self-selecting. This ensures that the party elite control whom they put up for election (usually themselves) and it is considered a very crude form of candidate selection. Although full blown cartel parties are rare, with RESPECT and the Union for French Democracy some isolated examples, many mainstream parties exhibit this type of control over who gets elected.

The case of Neil Hamilton is a good example: he was convicted of parliamentary malpractice. Despite this obvious flaw on his record, one that would have seen him expelled from candidacy in a US style primary election system, he was placed in a safe seat by the party leadership and was subsequently re-selected in 1997. He was, however, ousted by the journalist Martin Bell who secured the withdrawal of all other candidates and subsequently won the election.

Full Primary systems

This type of system is in place in the US and results in the local populations getting a say in the party’s choice of candidate for election. Clearly, with this system in place party coherence will suffer as they cannot guarantee that the party élite's choice wins and therefore they will not be able to ensure the loyalty of their candidates as the threat of de-selection will have little or no meaning unlike in the UK. There are very few examples of primary systems in use in Europe. One notable example is the Spanish Socialist Workers Party who held full primary election, which has led to a majority of unsurprising wins for the expected candidates. It has created one major surprise where the party leader was not selected to run for prime minister. This created a degree of instability within the party, which shows the problems of using primary systems in nations where party coherence is an issue.

Restricted Primary systems

This type of system where party members are allowed to voice their opinion regarding candidates is now widespread in Europe. The Conservative Party of the UK has recently dropped its "men in grey suits" emergence method and now adheres to a party constitution whereby party candidates are selected by a franchise restricted to party members. The Labour Party of the UK also uses this type of system. For the election of constituency candidates in both cases, the local branches can vote on a central list of members and many constituencies hold mini-primaries where the candidates assemble in a hall and present themselves and are then voted upon by the members present. Nevertheless, it is important to point out that the nominations for candidates is open to members in many EU states such as the UK, Sweden, Ireland and The Netherlands but the system is subject in all cases to veto and approval by higher party bodies. There is a wide spectrum of selection procedures that all come from the simple emergence system of Cartel parties to the fully open system of Primary election systems of the US. It should be noted that this spectrum also mirrors the level of party coherence and full primary systems would be found unmanageable in systems where this is essential as the Spanish example demonstrates.

Related link

* Leadership convention

References