Elections of new PES president

I understood from the recent releases, that the elections of new PES president shall take place at the upcoming congress in Romania; and that Mr Stavichev will be an acting president until then.

I assume that procedure of PES president election and submission of the candidates isn't yet defined, and hence I invite both PES activists and executives to discuss both, criteria and procedure for the upcoming election here, at this forum.

The American style primaries for European commissioners candidate were already discussed at the convention yesterday,and I assume, elections of new PES president will be a great try out to shape a practise of such primaries among European social democrats. Setting up more open criteria for candidates, and allowing members to submit applications not only through the delegations of the PES member parties at the congress, but also individually, would definitely help to revitalize the progressive and social democratic camp.

In my opinion it would be also great to increase the level of democracy within PES by electing new president not through the votes of party delegations at the congress, but by the individual votes of members, from each participating organisation. This can be organised by secretariat of member parties through mail and sms...

Nicholas Gabrichidze

http://www.gallery-gabrichidze.com