National Union Party (Rainier) leadership election, 2017


 * 2blank            = Party Membership
 * 3blank            = Local Representatives
 * 4blank            = Parliamentary Party
 * 1blank            = Electoral College

The 2017 National Union Party leadership election will be held in December 2017 to elect the 10th leader of the NUP. It will be the 5th election of a NUP leader and the 2nd to use an electoral college system.

Background
In the run-up to the 2017 House of Councillors election due to low polling there was speculation that NUP leader and Prime Minister Andrew Clarkson would face a leadership challenge. This speculation was fuelled following the resignation of cabinet member Daniel Lee in 2014 following proposals by the government to restrict civil liberties and after several back benchers such as Heidi Crapo and Richard Baron called for the government to go in a more right-wing direction. No challenge was launched however, a feat widely attribute due to the expectation that the NUP would lose the next election.

In early 2017 however the rise of the right-wing Reform party led to talks of the possibility of the formation of a NUP-Reform coalition forming the next government. This led to talk of a leadership bid by right-wing MP Richard Baron against Clarkson as Baron led opinion polls as the most favoured NUP candidate by its members. Baron however stated he was "100% behind the Prime Minister".

The 2017 election was a devastating defeat for the party which got under 25% of the vote for the first time in its history going from 59 to 35 seats. This resulted in Clarkson to resign from the NUP leadership and be replaced by deputy leader Mary Towers in an interim capacity until a new leader could be elected.

Electoral process
The leader of the National Union Party is elected by an of 1,350 members, with the system having been introduced in 1996 by Gerald Fairbrook. The electoral votes are allocated as such - As of 2017 the NUP has 35 MP's, 17 Senators and 3 MAP's (giving it 55 members of the parliamentary party) 78,000 members, 294 local councillors and 114 provincial assembly members, plus 121 provincial assembly members of official affiliate parties (Saskatchewan Party, Liberal Party - British Columbia and the United Conservative Party).
 * 540 (40%) of votes to the NUP parliamentary party (MP's, Senators and MAP's).
 * 405 (30%) of votes to NUP local representatives (provincial assembly MP's, including official affiliate parties and municipal councillors)
 * 405 (305) of votes to ordinary NUP members.