Vaughn Palmer: Expect NDP to take its time choosing a new leader

VICTORIA — With David Eby’s departure, the NDP appears headed for its first full-blown leadership contest in a decade and a half.

The last time the party held a leadership vote with more than one candidate for the job was after Carole James resigned in 2010. Adrian Dix defeated Mike Farnworth and John Horgan at a leadership convention and vote in April 2011.

Dix went on to lose the 2013 provincial election to Christy Clark, surprising many, me included. Dix stepped down, setting the stage for another leadership contest.

Horgan, the third-place finisher in the previous race, initially ruled out another run, saying it was time for a younger generation (he was 54) to take over. But after the fourth electoral defeat in a row, there were few takers, young or otherwise.

Eventually, Horgan was talked into changing his mind, whereupon Farnworth withdrew his candidacy. In May 2014, Horgan was acclaimed as leader of a party that was demoralized and financially broke.

Three years later, he was premier at the head of an NDP minority government, backed by the Greens under leader Andrew Weaver.

Horgan would go on to win a majority in 2020 and when he retired for health reasons in 2022, he was that rarest of B.C. premiers, more popular when he left office than when he assumed it.

Again, the stage was set for a leadership contest. David Eby was first in. Other New Democrats, including some of those around Horgan, felt Ravi Kahlon was a more likable option. But Kahlon took himself out for reasons of family (he had a young son) and endorsed Eby.

Then climate activist Anjali Appadurai entered the race with strong backing from other environmentalists and brought a surge of new members with her.

Though Eby purported to welcome Appadurai’s candidacy, his organization worked behind the scenes to build a case for disqualifying her, an effort that succeeded.

Appadurai supporter Avi Lewis would later publish an account of the “desperate disqualification of Anjali Appadurai” in the National Observer online.

He accused the NDP of blocking her “because if the leadership race went to a vote of party members, there was every likelihood she would win.”

Lewis, who last year won the federal NDP leadership on his own activist platform, wrote that the rough treatment of Appadurai could “taint” Eby’s leadership.

Nevertheless, the NDP brass went along with the drive to disqualify Appadurai. With the only challenger eliminated, Eby then became the second NDP leader in a row to get the top job by acclamation.

With Eby taking the fall for last month’s crushing defeat — while perversely insisting the snap election was the right call — New Democrats are saying this time the party needs to hold proper leadership contest.

“This is not the time to seek leadership by acclamation,” says Rick Glumac, the departing minister of state who was defeated for re-election in his Port Moody-Burquitlam seat on Oct. 24.