2007 Leadership Referendum
At the party's 2007 Spring Conference in Swansea, members voted to hold a cross-party referendum on whether the posts should be changed to Leader and Deputy Leader (with the option for Co-Leaders if two candidates chose to run together and were gender balanced, in the event of which there would be no Deputy Leader). The new system would allow the Leader and Deputy (or Co-Leaders) to vote on GPEx and, rather than being elected annually (like the Principal Speakers), the posts would be elected every two years. Provisions for recalling the Leader and Deputy were articulated. Despite the controversial nature of this issue, many participants, such as Siân Berry, were struck by the how "constructive" the debate turned out to be.
On Friday November 30, 2007 the ballots were counted and members voted 73% to 27% in favour of the new leadership model with a 48.3% turnout of Green Party members.
Read more about this topic: Principal Speaker
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