Regulating nominations in political parties: Candidates, open primaries and Law

Abstract

Candidate nomination is in the core of any democratic order. Political parties require an efficient no- mination process that should achieve three goals: 1) determine a clear winner, 2) promote a capable politician and 3) prevent the negative effects of internal competition. In order to regulate this process, the interests of all the agents involved have to be balanced. Particularly, the interest of the affiliates, who would want to exert some control over the process and the candidate selected; the interest of the party as-an-organization, who would like to select a competitive candidate; the interest of the candidate-to- -be, who would like to know beforehand the procedural aspects of the nomination; and, last but not least, the interest of the electorate, that would like to participate in the elaboration of the electoral ticket. Taking into account that in countries such as Spain, Italy or France, nomination is a non-state-regulated process, political parties have a wide margin of appreciation when regulating this process. Analyzing former primary processes (French PS and Italian PD) and regulation proposals (Spanish PSOE), this work aims to study the basic aspects on regulating nomination by the political parties. Therefore this pa- per will address when to conduct the nomination process, which organ of the party can take the decision and regulate the process, who (and how) can be candidate, who composes the selectorate, how do the se- lectorate express their preferences, and how the process is financed. The results obtained will determine the internal requirements that political parties impose on the right to be a candidate in a formal electoral process, underlining their important role in a representative democracy