Alba's internal democracy suffers another severe blow

Just over a year ago, I was one of four candidates who took part in the internal election for the Alba Party's Membership Support Convener. The other three were the incumbent Jacqueline Bijster, the former senior civil servant Daniel Jack, and the young activist Scott Fallon.  As with all of the other office bearer elections, it eventually descended into total chaos when the leadership suddenly decided to nullify the results just minutes before they were due to be announced.  But even before that, there had been an incident of controversy.

Prior to the vote opening, Jacqueline Bijster sent out an email to members in her capacity as incumbent which made reference to the election.  The party leadership reacted with absolute fury, arguing that this was a clear attempt on her part to abuse the advantages of office to skew the outcome.  They then took an extraordinary level of 'remedial action' - Chris McEleny sent an email to all party members listing the names of the other three candidates (ie. myself, Mr Jack and Mr Fallon), but omitting Ms Bijster's name. The three of us were also invited to write a short pitch in support of our candidacies, which was sent to all party members in a separate email, again without any pitch from Ms Bijster.

My initial reaction to all of this was one of bemusement. In fact I directly told Alex Salmond (on what I think was the last occasion I spoke to him before he died) that I had no great problem with what Ms Bijster did.  I agreed that her email gave her an advantage in the election, and I even agreed that may have been her motivation for sending it, but I pointed out that the incumbent was bound to have an in-built advantage due to their right to send out official emails under their name during their whole year in office.  One more email seemed to me to be neither here nor there, and the whole thing seemed like a total over-reaction.

As always in these situations, things were not quite as they seemed.  I discovered months later that the reason for the leadership's reaction was not a zealous commitment to free and fair elections, but instead that they had turned against Ms Bijster (for reasons that were not entirely clear), and wanted to use the election to get her replaced by Daniel Jack.  There were one or two steps taken to boost Mr Jack's profile at the right moment, and I gather Ms Bijster clocked what was going on and was savvy enough to realise that it wasn't just the leadership who had the in-built ability to push one particular candidate forward - she could do the same thing for herself. Essentially what the leadership objected to was that she had been streetwise enough to fight back against their own tactics extremely effectively.

But on the face of it, the leadership were saying that internal elections have to be scrupulously fair and that all candidates must have an absolutely equal opportunity to put their case.  Contrast that with the extraordinary email that was sent to Alba members yesterday.  For a second year in a row, the internal elections have been cancelled, but this time they've been replaced by a straight Yes/No plebiscite on allowing all current executive members to extend their term of office for around six months.  The email went on to expand at length on how uniquely suitable the current executive is and to exhort members to vote Yes for an extension.

So where is the scrupulous fairness in this plebiscite?  Where is the balancing email from those who don't support an extension and giving them an equal opportunity to set out the reasons why?  I've pointed out a number of times over the last year that the Alba leadership has become increasingly authoritarian, and I'm afraid this is another example of that.  The replacement of fully-fledged elections with plebiscites is, let's be honest, a classic tactic of authoritarian regimes down the ages (General Pinochet, for example) as they seek to give themselves a veneer of legitimacy.  I'd say a good rule of thumb is that if the purpose of a vote is not to give members a genuine choice, but instead an exercise in theatrics to give the appearance of legitimacy to a decision that has already been taken, then you have crossed a Rubicon and moved away from democracy.  It's quite clear that members are 'required' to vote Yes in this plebiscite, not least because there doesn't seem to be any meaningful alternative proposition - no explanation is given in the email of what would actually happen if there is a No vote.  The unspoken challenge to members is "you're not going to vote for a void, are you?"

I have no doubt whatsoever that the leadership will get their desired North Korean style 95%+ Yes vote.  However, if I had a vote myself (and I don't because I've been arbitrarily suspended from the party at Chris McEleny's personal whim for the last month and a half), I would vote No. I would do that as a matter of principle to object to yet another departure from democratic norms, but I would also do it because I frankly don't think the current executive have a collective record that warrants the confidence of members for a six-month extension.  The last year has seen numerous abuses of the party's disciplinary machinery to crack down on freedom of speech, and although that is not directly the fault of executive members, they are the only people with the power to rein in the General Secretary and the Party Chair when they act inappropriately, and they have signally failed to do so.  They have also presided over numerous blatant breaches of the party constitution - not just my own unconstitutional removal from a directly elected position on a committee, but also the appointments of Suzanne Blackley and Ash Regan to replace office bearers when under the terms of the constitution those positions should have automatically gone to the runners-up in the relevant elections (Abdul Majid and Heather McLean respectively). To be clear, I'm making these criticisms of the executive on a collective basis, because a collective extension is being sought.  It may well be that individual executive members have tried to do the right thing but were voted down.

I know some will argue that these are special circumstances and that the plebiscite is a one-off.  But it's only a year since there were other special circumstances that supposedly justified the one-off nullification of election results.  This is becoming a bit of a habit.  What will be the special circumstances next year?  What will be the deviation from democratic norms next year?  My own view is that Alex Salmond's tragic death does justify the postponement of the internal elections, but that postponement should have been no more than a few weeks and there should have been no question of a dodgy 'managed plebiscite' to justify anything longer than that.