Nominations to be the Green Party's next London Mayoral candidate opened today, with the party predicting a close-fought contest. After finishing third in the last Mayoral and London Assembly elections in 2012, membership of the London Green Party has surged and the party trebled its vote share in the recent general election.With Greens expected to put in their strongest challenge to-date in next May's Mayoral elections, the opportunity to represent the Party will be highly competitive.
All members of the London Green Party will take part in its selection process and the final vote for the party's Mayoral candidate will be conducted via a ballot of its members using the Single Transferable Vote (STV), a proportional voting system.
The Green Party currently has two Assembly Members, Darren Johnson and Baroness Jenny Jones. Jenny Jones was the Green's Mayoral candidate in 2012 when she finished in third place behind Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone. So far Sian Berry, who stood for the Green party in 2008 Mayoral contest has announced her intention to challenge for the role, its also expected that party leader Natalie Bennett will also throw her hat into the ring
Caroline Allen, Co-Chair of the London Green Party, said: "The next 12 months promise to be an extremely exciting time for the London Green Party. The 2012 elections put us as the capital's third biggest party and with our membership rising every week, we are in a brilliant position to challenge for Mayor and increase our number of seats on the London Assembly. Over the coming weeks we're going to see a lot of excellent candidates come forwards for nomination.
Ms Allen continued: "But, what we want to do is ensure the competition to be our candidate for Mayor and the campaign that follows isn't all about us. Our priority will be about using our selections process as a chance to talk to Londoners, identify the issues affecting them and making sure these are front and centre of every debate during the election campaign. We want to show that the future of this great city doesn't have to be dominated by ludicrously expensive flats, choking air pollution, and rising wage inequality. With the opening of our nominations today, we're firing the starting gun on a process of completely reimagining the future of London."
The Green Party is expected to announce the winner of its selection process on Sunday 20th September. Full timetable as follows:
- Monday 1 June 2015: Call for Nominations, Appointment of panel assessors
- Monday 27 July 2015: Close of Nominations
- Monday 3 August 2015: End of 'Additional Nominations Week' - if required
- Saturday 24 August 2015: Issue of Ballot Papers
- Hustings - dates, time & locations to be announced by ERO by the end of July 2015
- Thursday 17 September 2015: Close of voting
- Saturday 19 September 2015: The Count
- Sunday 20 September 2015: The Result
