The Alba Party's days could be numbered as the disgraced former General Secretary Chris McEleny chooses his moment to unleash "the full wrath of a Mad Dog"

Back in the spring, I exclusively broke the news on Scot Goes Pop (based on what I'd been told by a reliable source) that the Alba Party's disgraced former General Secretary Chris McEleny was refusing to step down as the party's Nominating Officer, and that under Electoral Commission rules, the Alba leadership had no power to remove him against his will.  This left Alba in the extraordinary position that a man they had just expelled was in total control of the list of candidates they put forward for elections, and indeed had the power to block any Alba candidates from being put forward at all.  McEleny's controversial Somerset-based blogger mate "Stew" swiftly ridiculed what I'd revealed, implying it was no more than a figment of my crazed imagination, but even at that stage a lot of the story was easily verifiable from information in the public domain on the Electoral Commission website, and now the rest of the story has been fully confirmed by the Sunday National, who several months later are the first mainstream media outlet to pick up on this latest crisis for Alba.  They have a quote from McEleny in which he openly admits that he has remained the party's Nominating Officer since his expulsion.  It appears that the Alba leadership are betting the house on legal action proving enough to dislodge McEleny without having to do any sort of deal with him - but based on my reading of the rules, that seems to be an extreme long shot.

A commenter on the previous thread asked for my reaction to the Sunday National piece, and you can hear it in the video below.  A key question, of course, is what McEleny's motivations and intentions are - if he's just making a symbolic gesture and trying to make the Alba leadership sweat a bit, the consequences may not be all that severe.  But if he's genuinely planning to use his full powers as Nominating Officer to block candidates from standing, it may be checkmate for Alba and they may be forced to start afresh by registering a new party with a new name.

Those of you who have been suffering withdrawal symptoms from my extensive Shannon Donoghue coverage earlier in the year will be delighted to hear that she does get a passing mention in the video.  But please take this opportunity to update your Donoghue-related fan merchandise, because the Wedding of the Century has now TAKEN PLACE and she's therefore now called Shannon Cullen.

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