Socialist Party

[Cranberry]

I guess I'll join your little party, guys

x Cranberry

[Cranberry]

I guess primaries are the fairest way possible to determine ranking on a closed PR list, and IRV would probably be the best way to conduct them. If people want to, we could always just take the "winner" of this primary as leader/prime ministerial candidate/grand mufti/whatever we want to call the position, or elect that on a separate ballot, whatever is the consensus or the preferred option.

[Cranberry]

So a potential ballot would have something like that:

Party Leader: (I personally prefer this name for the PM candidate, as he is our party's leader, if not in an administrative position)

Person A
Person B
Person C [X]

FPTP or IRV for that?

General Secretary: (or whatever name you wish)

Person A
Person B [X]

same question as above

Party list

1 - Person A
2 - Person C
3 - Person D
4 - Person B

[Cranberry]

6 hours might be a bit short, given we have a variety of players from different time zones here, so I would propose 24 hours minimum for any voting / announcement / nomination period.

On topic though, why not, I'll be running for party leader.

[Cranberry]

All these methods are too complicated. The list should be chosen by the elected party leadership and subjected to an up/down vote of the membership.

No, not at all. If we are truly the "Socialist Party" we need to reflect that in party policy as well, and the best way to do that in regards to party lists is to elect them in the most equal, most "socialist" way possible, which is through participation of every party member.

Also, I withdraw my candidacy for party leader (go Crabcake!) and instead run for General Secretary/Chairman/whatever the name.

[Cranberry]

I like Al's draft very much, though I do wonder if given the still quite small size of our party 5 members for the National Executive is not too much. Maybe three would suffice already, with General Secretary, Party Leader and one extra member elected by the party membership, at least for the time being. The size of the National Executive could obviously always be expanded accordingly to the growth of our party's size.

Secondly, the question of amending our party's statutes remains unsolved in this draft, at least according to my (probably insufficient) reading. The most democratic way to do this would obviously be at a convention, though I wonder if with just one convention per year, this would in reality prove to be quite inflexible and ineffective. I would prefer a solution with the National Executive resolving potential amendments, which would then become effective immediately, but be subject to vote, and possible deletion, by the party members at the beginning of the next convention. What would others think of that?

Finally, while it makes sense to refrain on voting for yet non-existent positions until after the passage of party statutes, I would still encourage the election of a "presiding official" for the party's founding convention, which I guess we could call this current thread.

[Cranberry]

Yeah, your points make sense, I'll be okay with five - our party will hopefully grow with time, so that matter shouldn't poise to big a problem.

I don't know if three months is not too often - Atlasia had conventions about that often and they were the most boring thing imaginable. What about six months?

Also, since everything else is pretty much non-controversial, I motion for a vote on adoption of the party statutes as of the version presented by Al. I guess we can always vote on potential amendments later (that would get done by simple majority votes I guess, since that's not specifically mentioned?), but it's good to have a foundation from which on to work.

[Cranberry]

That would make sense, yeah. Since this can be viewed as a sort of founding convention, I guess it's either way if we add that before or after adoption of the statutes.

[Cranberry]

Aye

[Cranberry]

A few more ideas for platform. This is not proposed as an amendment, just offering something to think and talk about.

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[Cranberry]

I accept the nomination for General Secretary, and support the nomination of comrade CrabCake as leader.

Cranberry, not that I disagree with any of those proposals, but some of them feel superfluous. I prefer the relatively pared back platform, although your first amendent is my favourite of the three.

Yeah, you're probably right about that. As Comrade Sibboleth said, it will probably be better to include something similar to that in our election manifesto.

What I still would like to see in our short platform however is an adress to the question of federalism/centralism/ generally the question of how to organise South America, with all that that entails (common currency or freedom of movement, for example, which will certainly prove to be difficult questions which need a strong, unified, socialist answer)

[Cranberry]

Thank you!

[Cranberry]

Alright, thank you for your support!

Later today I will open up our first convention, so we can then discuss any matters that might/will arise, including elections to the National Executive and the party list.