BNP leadership election result - no surprises, just questions
Lancaster UAF | 27.07.2007 02:49 | Anti-racism | Repression | Social Struggles | Liverpool
Griffin: 91%
Jackson: 9%
Turnout: 43%
No great surprise there except that a large number of people chose to deliberately abstain. What is surprising is that the BNP hasn't yet bothered (at 0330) to put the result up on its web site and that there are no actual numbers mentioned.
The numbers are all important in this contest. if we assume the BNP has a total voting membership of 10000, which it hasn't but it's almost impossible to get a true figure, that means 5700 chose not to vote, leaving 4300 who did. By our reckoning, 387 BNP members voted for Chris Jackson - substantially more than the 100 signatures he had to gather simply to be allowed to stand in this patently rigged contest.
For a virtual unknown - or at least unknown outside the North-West of England - Jackson did remarkably well, particularly when one considers the short period between announcement and election and the many limitations placed on him regarding anything to do with having direct access to the membership. Had it been a fair fight, we would have expected Jackson to easily double his votes. In fact, in our opinion he could have done a lot better had he actively campaiged. We wonder why he didn't.
Griffin is now in the peculiar and uncomfortable position that has affected every real party leader for decades - he's a minority leader, chosen to lead the BNP by a minority of the available votes in his party. In fact, working on the percentages alone, he only has a mandate from 39% of the party - hardly 'a resounding mandate', as one idiotic Stormfronter put it...
Much more here: http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2007/07/bnp-leadership-election-result-no.html
Lancaster UAF
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