BC NDP under fire for disqualification of Anjali Appadurai

The BC NDP is being blasted Thursday, after the party executive voted to disqualify Anjali Appadurai — the only candidate running against David Eby — from the leadership race.

The vote happened late Wednesday and the reaction has been swift.

“It’s disheartening to see the NDP subvert the democratic process within their leadership contest by terminating the candidacy of the only real challenger to the heir-apparent, David Eby, and slam the door on the thousands of British Columbians who joined the NDP to support Anjali Appadurai,” said BC Liberal MLA Elenore Sturko.

“The NDP’s entire 57-seat Caucus sat back and allowed those voices to be shut out of the democratic process and a young woman to be disqualified from running against Eby by a party that picks and chooses when it applies an equity mandate to candidacies. It’s clear that in the NDP it’s all about who you know and who you strike deals with and has nothing to do with merit or even the number of supporters you can sign up. David’s dirty deeds have revealed that it’s all a sham.”

The NDP have subverted the democratic process by terminating the candidacy of the only real challenger to their heir-apparent, David Eby.

Full statement from BC Liberal caucus below:https://t.co/EFUVaBXcBQ

— BC United (@voteBCUnited) October 20, 2022

Liberal House Leader Todd Stone went on to say that this was “a stunning indictment of the sorry state of the NDP that David Eby is the best they could get to fast-track and trample democracy in order to move into the Premier’s Office.”

The BC NDP executive announced late Wednesday that it “voted to support the Chief Electoral Officer’s recommendation to disqualify” Appadurai “as a sanction for violating the rules.”

The recommendations referenced were outlined in a report from Elizabeth Cull and obtained by several media outlets earlier this week. Cull noted that Appadurai had been under investigation for multiple breaches of the party’s rules, with accusations of encouraging BC Green members to leave their party and temporarily join the New Democrats to vote for her. Claims suggested Appadurai’s camp even offered to pay for new members’ memberships and that she used Dogwood BC’s list to recruit members.

The BC Green Party was also quick to respond Wednesday night, with Sonia Furstenau saying it was “a sad day for democracy.”

“Ms. Appadurai’s campaign spoke honestly about the overlapping health care, climate, and affordability crises that British Columbians are facing and this government’s failure to make progress on them. It’s no surprise that so many people were inspired by her message,” the Green leader said. “To those who joined Anjali’s campaign with so much hope: please don’t give up on politics. The stakes are too high. It’s important that your voice is heard and we are listening.”

An official statement from @SoniaFurstenau on the NDP Leadership race. #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/cjvyxv1fWT

— BC Green Party (@BCGreens) October 20, 2022

‘A challenging situation’ for the BC NDP

The move by the executive effectively means Eby will become the next premier of B.C. In his statement following the vote, NDP President Aaron Sumexheltza said Cull is now “considering moving up the election date” given Eby is the only candidate remaining. It was announced Thursday that Eby would be declared leader of the BC NDP Friday morning.

“David has been one of the hardest working members of my Cabinet,” Premier John Horgan said Thursday.

“The success we had in bringing down costs at ICBC are a direct result of the work of David Eby exposing the corruption and the money laundering that was so rampant in British Columbia before our government came to power was a direct result of the work of David Eby,” he added, highlighting some of Eby’s work in politics.

“We have 57 members who range in age from mid 30s, to early 70s,” said Horgan about his party. “We are increasingly representing the diversity of British Columbia. I would suggest honorably and in good faith, and I’m proud of what they did and I’m proud of where this government has come and even prouder of where David will take it.”

Political pundits say the development Wednesday speaks volumes.

“I think it’s really a challenging situation and it doesn’t leave anybody happy. It suggests to me that the NDP on the one hand has not invested enough in party organization,” explained Max Cameron, a political science professor at UBC.

Related articles: 

• John Horgan defends BC NDP’s Appadurai disqualification

• BC NDP disqualifies Anjali Appadurai; David Eby set to be next premier

• BC NDP chief electoral officer wants Appadurai barred from leadership race: report

• Appadurai fights back against ‘undemocratic’ BC NDP report

“We’ve only got 11,000 members in a governing party in a major province — that tells me that the party itself as an organization has atrophied, and that has made the party vulnerable, especially when the leadership moved forward with a leadership process that only had one candidate. So they were vulnerable to an outsider insurgency, mobilizing the rank and file … they’re unhappy with the lack of sufficiently a strong response to the current climate crisis. I think that’s what’s caught the NDP in a real pickle,” added Cameron.

Questions about Cull’s report have been raised by many, given her current employment as an LNG lobbyist.

The BC NDP leadership race began after current leader and Premier John Horgan announced in June he would be stepping down.

Eby officially announced he would be seeking to replace Horgan in July, amid major speculation he would. Appadurai entered the race the next month, in August, challenging Eby for the seat, with climate a big driving force of her campaign.

“I think this is extraordinarily damaging to David Eby as he, presumably then, moves forward to take the reigns of the NDP. We know that these kinds of battles can scar leaders and have an impact on their viability in future elections,” said Cameron of the situation the Appadurai disqualification has created.

“People will question the legitimacy of his process, it does appear to be undemocratic. Obviously, the complaint is that a third party was mobilizing non-NDP members to be a part of the party. The response to that, on the part of Anjali Appadurai, is of course the point of having leadership races is that you mobilize new people into the party. These were people who were enthusiastic about the possibility of her leadership. So to have a leader, essentially, move forward uncontested under these conditions just looks really bad, and I think it will dog the NDP.”

Appadurai says situation is ‘undemocratic’

Prior to the NDP executive vote Wednesday and following reporting of Cull’s recommendations, Appadurai released a statement of her own, taking aim at an information bulletin posted by the electoral officer on Aug. 31 that made campaigns responsible for what third parties do during leadership races.

“This is clearly a new interpretation, it was not information that we had before Aug. 31. There is no way we could have known that interpretation in advance,” she said, adding the bulletin was applied retroactively to cover events that took place weeks prior, like on Aug. 6, when the report says she promised backers that Dogwood and other groups would help her gather new members.

BC NDP leadership candidate Anjali Appadurai at a news conference addressing a party recommendation she be barred from the leadership race. She was disqualified from the race by the BC NDP executive later that day, on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. (CityNews Image)

Appadurai has insisted her campaign is not guilty of any wrongdoing, saying the process has not been fair to her.

“There has been not a single piece of evidence presented to justify this claim. Worse, with every good-faith new member the party turns away, the party acts against its own values to puts people first,” she said, calling the situation an “undemocratic” way to disqualify her bid for the party leadership.

She is set to publicly speak about her disqualification Thursday afternoon.

Where does the BC NDP go now?

With the assumption that Eby will now become the next premier, he’s set to take on the BC Liberals and their leader, Kevin Falcon, in the next provincial election, slated for 2024.

Whether the party will fracture by then remains a question.

“I think there’s really a deeper problem, which is that the NDP has done a very fine job in the majority position of occupying the centre of the political spectrum, in part by taking the wind out of the sails of the BC Liberals by being so aggressive in support of extraction, of pipelines, of LNG, forestry, mining, and so forth, and that’s alienated the base,” explained Cameron.

“One response would be we would need to see the party take climate change more seriously, really stop old growth logging, put a halt to the expansion of LNG, take more seriously the claims of Indigenous people who are blocking pipelines in Wet’suwet’en territory, for example. There’s a host of things the NDP could do to mullify that base, but it’s going to look like closing the barn door after the horses have bolted.”

The BC New Democrats were supposed to elect their new leader on Dec. 3, 2023.

-With files from Greg Bowman, Michael Williams, and Emily Marsten