Many dismayed by BC NDP after Anjali Appadurai disqualified
There has been an unexpected twist in the leadership race for the BC NDP that’s left lots of climate activists fuming. This week the BC NDP’s provincial executive rejected Anjali Appadurai’s bid to become leader, leaving David Eby to be acclaimed as the sole candidate.
PeaceQuest readers may recall last month when we told you about the campaign by Anjali Appadurai to replace outgoing BC NDP Leader and Premier John Horgan. Appadurai is a staff team member of the Vancouver-based Climate Emergency Unit (CEU), founded by our friend Seth Klein.
As Andrew MacLeod reports in the online newspaper The Tyee, Party chief electoral officer Elizabeth Cull, a former BC NDP cabinet minister, detailed her reasons to recommend disqualifying Appadurai in a 24-page report leaked to media ahead of Wednesday’s decision by the provincial executive. Cull’s main concern was that the Appadurai campaign had improperly co-ordinated with third parties, particularly the environmental groups Dogwood and 350.org, to sign up new members.
Appadurai has argued that she did not coordinate with the groups, says MacLeod. “The real active third party in the leadership contest was the provincial government, she said. ‘Specifically, our NDP government’s series of fateful decisions on issues of deep concern to longtime NDP members.’”
The decisions she cites are to continue building the Site C dam, the failure to change to a proportional representation voting system, the continued logging of old-growth forests, the export of liquefied natural gas and the collapse of the health-care system.
Many of her supporters were understandably upset by the decision, including former NDP candidate and broadcaster Avi Lewis.
It’s over. @AnjaliApp has been disqualified.
— Avi Lewis (@avilewis) October 20, 2022
I think when the Executive voted at the top of the meeting that it didn’t even want to hear @AnjaliApp‘s response to the accusations, it was 100% obvious which way this would go.
An unfair end to a grossly unfair process.#bcpoli
(Cover via https://www.anjaliforbc.ca/)
