On Friday, the BC NDP will have a new leader in David Eby who has won the race for leadership following Premier John Horgan’s resignation.
BC NDP party members would have had to vote between Eby and Anjali Appadurai to take over leadership of the BC NDP.
A leaked document surfaced earlier this week. In it, the chief electoral official for the BC NDP, Elizabeth Cull, recommended Appadurai be disqualified from leadership consideration.
In the leaked document, Appadurai was accused of colluding with third party organizations for membership drives, specifically an environmental non-profit based in Victoria called Dogwood.
Dogwood, alongside her campaign, allegedly solicited fraudulent party members by signing on people with ties to other parties and convincing them to vote for her.
She signed on thousands of new members to the party but after taking a closer look at who these members were, it was revealed that many of them were already members of the Green Party, which is not allowed.
Cull’s report concluded that Appadurai’s misconduct warranted disqualification from the leadership race.
Appadurai was officially ejected from the leadership race on Wednesday night and it was announced Thursday morning that Eby would officially be the new leader of the BC NDP—he will now be Horgan’s replacement.
Elections BC would have had the responsibility of investigating the Appadurai campaign’s finances, but they are closing their review.
They say this is due to Anjali Appadurai not becoming an approved leadership contestant.
The BC NDP would have to approve a leadership contestant for the Election Act’s campaign finance rules to apply to their campaign.
The Act requires approved leadership contestants – which Appadurai is not – to only accept political contributions from eligible individuals and file financing reports with Elections BC.
Both Dogwood and Appadurai deny any wrongdoing.
