2015 Social Democratic Party of Scalizagasti leadership election
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| Turnout | 48.2% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2015 Social Democratic Party of Scalizagasti leadership election was held on 22 January 2015. Members of the Social Democratic Party of Scalizagasti, a major party in Scalizagasti, voted for a new leader following the death of David Keyes in 2014. Keyes was killed in a car crash on 3 June 2014, after which the election was immediately called so a new leader would have enough time to prepare for the upcoming 2016 federal election. Between Keyes' death and the election, Laura Hannasuya served as the interim party leader.
Five candidates made it onto the ballot: Saied Anwar, Alina Droste, Sarah Millard, Marcel Nystrom, and Oscar Yakobo. To qualify, a candidate needed to pay an entrance fee of $15,000. Anyone with a valid party membership purchased before 9 January 2015 was eligible to vote in the election. Secret votes were cast by the members using a preferential ranked ballot to determine the winner. In total, 139,651 votes were cast, representing a turnout of 48.2%.
Sarah Millard was elected on the second ballot with 51.3% of the vote, becoming the second-youngest leader of the SDP at 33 years old. Millard would lead the SDP to victory in the 2016 federal election in their greatest performance in over a decade, forming a coalition government with the Greens and two other parties.
Background
David Keyes was elected as leader of the SDP in the 2013 leadership election, replacing Bill Hu who resigned as leader due to a poor electoral performance. The Social Democrats had consistently lost support every election since 2004 due to a series of corruption scandals. The 2012 election had been one of the worst performances for the SDP ever, winning only 31 seats with 5.7% of the popular vote. Some predicted the SDP would be permanently displaced by the Green Party which came in a record second place.
Millard and Nystrom both announced their candidacy early and were always the two frontrunners. Millard was seen as the candidate representing the progressive urban youth wing of the party, while Nystrom represented the rural unionist wing. There was a split within the party on whether the strategy for the next election should be to focus on the youth vote which went to the Greens in 2012, or the rural blue-collar vote which went to the conservative New Scalizagasti Party. Millard was also a well-known figure by the public after one of her parliamentary debates went viral in 2014.