Talk:2021 Welsh Conservatives leadership election

An election?

Might be worth renaming this page as 2021 Welsh Conservatives leadership Contest as there wasn't an election as Andrew RT Davies was unanimously chosen by follow Members of the Senedd. Cwmcafit (talk) 14:15, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

References

Can/should we call this an election?

Pinging page editors: Cwmcafit, This is Paul, TheBadBassist

It doesn't appear party members got any say on this decision, nor from what I can see was there even a vote among Conservative Senedd members and thirdly no one appeared to stand against Andrew R. T. Davies. If party members didn't get a vote, no votes even occurred amongst Conservative Senedd members (they appear to have just verbally agreed amongst themselves) and there was no opponent, can/should we call it an election? I'd say we should either remove the page as in my view no election occurred, or at the very least we rename it, perhaps to something like 2021 Welsh Conservatives leadership appointment. Helper201 (talk) 23:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

There are numerous examples of unopposed leadership elections that still have Wikipedia pages and are still called elections, such as the 2007 Labour Party leadership election. As a result, I think this page should be kept. TheBadBassist (talk) 01:36, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

UKIP had an leadership election in 2018 we're it was also unopposed. Maybe it's the style of Wikipedia? But I think this page should stay but renamed as 2021 Welsh Conservatives leadership appointment.Cwmcafit (talk) 11:25, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

TheBadBassist, true, but in those other unnopposed leadership elections votes were actually cast for the repective candiate. As far as I'm aware no votes were actually cast in this election. Can we really call it an election if no votes were cast?

Thanks for your feedback, Cwmcafit, I agree. Helper201 (talk) 18:45, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I think it should be the same as any other article on Wikipedia in terms of its naming, though I can see both sides of the argument, especially as there doesn't appear to have been any formal process. I think insight is needed from more veteran editors or perhaps administrators before a decision is taken.TheBadBassist (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:08, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll put a message on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom page now, to see if they have any opinions.Cwmcafit (talk) 19:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

It's a difficult one with this. When I created the article, I did so in the expectation a vote would be cast, which ultimately didn't happen. I suppose it's possible to argue their agreement to choose him as leader was a vote in itself, albeit an informal one. I'm happy if people want to change it to leadership appointment, but let's get some more thoughts on it. This is Paul (talk) 20:34, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• I would say it's OK to call this an "election" - we seem to usually use "election" for cases like this, eg the 2007 Labour contest mentioned above. It's not that there wasn't any electoral process, just that it was apparent the election was going to be unopposed so there was no need to proceed to a vote. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:30, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

There still may have been people that did not wish him to become leader, they just may not have wanted to say so openly. This is one of the reasons why privacy is so important in elections, it helps negate a lot of peer pressure and allows people to be more honest. In many cases when a candidate stands unopposed there is also an option for none of the above or re-open nominations. For me if no votes were cast then there was no election. Elections are formal processes where people are allowed to vote in confidentiality. Helper201 (talk) 23:51, 5 February 2021 (UTC)