Unfollow the leader: The case for power-sharing in political parties

Justin Ling is a freelance journalist covering politics and policy from Toronto.

For more than a decade, Elizabeth May has been the leader – the force of nature, if you will – of Canada’s Green Party. But it’s been a lonely affair. She is the first, and only, Green to be elected to the House of Commons.

She’s hoping the next federal election brings her a rainbow connection. A chance to elect another Green, or multiple Greens, who could take the reins. Or, better yet, share the leadership with her.

“I would love it,” she says in an interview. It’s ultimately up to her members, she says, “but the more I do this job, the more I think, ‘It would be lovely if the Green Party of Canada changed to a co-leader situation.' ”

Such a statement may sound downright bewildering for Canadians. As Ms. May herself says, Canadian democracy is incredibly leader-centric – “presidential-ized,” she calls it – with caucus members reduced to parroting approved talking points and voters generally thinking about which single firm hand they want on the tiller when they head to the polls.

For the most part, Canada has been pretty happy with that system. Leaders of the country tend to come into office with approval ratings north of 60 per cent – and, as they lose their shine, we tend to throw them into the organics bin and move on to our next affection. That’s kind of how our system works.

Recently, though, something has felt quite broken. Canadians seem stuck with a spate of federal leaders they largely just don’t like all that much.

Angus Reid found in March that a majority of the country actively dislikes the male leaders at the helm of its political parties. Andrew Scheer performs best of the three, with a net approval rating of -6; Jagmeet Singh sits at -15, and Justin Trudeau lags the pack at -27. (Ms. May’s rating, by comparison, is +8.)

It’s quite the turn for Mr. Trudeau, once the Liberal golden boy – a happy face that vaulted ahead of his opponents’ dour mugs to become Prime Minister.

His smile now looks less than genuine, having just unceremoniously removed two erstwhile cabinet ministers from caucus. In so doing, he reminded everyone that he is the boss and, ultimately, that it’s his way or the highway.

The Prime Minister’s dimmed popularity isn’t surprising, but the ratings for the two primary opposition leaders are more interesting. Their poor numbers are probably due to the fact that both Mr. Scheer and Mr. Singh’s victories were the products of bruising-yet-lacklustre leadership campaigns of parties fundamentally unsure of where they ought to be heading.

So the whole crop of candidates for Canada’s top job might be well served to ask themselves the same question Ms. May has been considering: Is it time to ditch the idea of the leader?

While we have accepted that our political parties need a single leader for an awfully long time, it’s not entirely clear how we became so wedded to the idea. The single prime minister model – the need for a boss in cabinet – is a relatively recent addition in the long history of our motherland, the United Kingdom. For centuries, the monarch was responsible for appointing a cabinet, sometimes headed by a chief minister, to collectively administer the king’s state. But at multiple points through history, there was no such boss. During the restoration period, King Charles II had a conjoined five-man cabinet whose names, conveniently enough, formed the acronym CABAL, thus leading to its designation as the cabal cabinet.

It took until 1722 for the concept of a prime minister to emerge from the British House of Commons, with the decades-long reign of Sir Robert Walpole, who clung to power partly on skill and charm. By the latter half of his tenure, though, that support wavered. “Admiring the man requires discrimination and distinction-making,” a biographer wrote. “Liking him is too difficult.”

Since then, the House of Commons has revolved through one prime minister after another, and that idea has been exported to parliaments around the world. For the past two centuries, we’ve treated this experiment – that a prime minister is “first among equals” – as scripture.

Increasingly, though, it seems Canada’s prime minister has become, simply, first. The prime minister, as leader of their party, caucus and cabinet, has assumed a level of power that makes them more monarch than minister. Few other parliaments see such party rigidity as Canada’s, and hardly any afford so much power to the leaders and so little to individual MPs. Punishing rules governing independent MPs and small parties don’t help.

But you don’t have to look too far for an example of a party trying to do leadership in a more equitable way.

Québec Solidaire is, at present, the third-largest party in the National Assembly. And yet it has no leader – it has two co-spokespeople, trying to bring gender parity to the leadership and, in the past, has had one spokesperson in the legislature and an unelected spokesperson out in the community. It’s no grand surprise that the party does things differently: It’s a left-wing coalition of socialists, sovereigntists, ecologists, feminists and many others -ists. But the most recent provincial election saw the party grow to new heights, winning 16 per cent of the vote and 10 seats.

In the leaders’ debate during last year’s election, Parti Québécois chief Jean-François Lisée tried to turn the party’s novelty into a liability. He demanded, repeatedly, to speak to the “boss” of co-spokesperson Manon Massé. “Where is he?” Mr. Lisée asked.

It backfired in spectacular fashion. Mr. Lisée’s own unpopularity dragged his party down, while Québec Solidaire finished just one percentage point behind the Parti Québécois in the popular vote and won party status for the first time in the Quebec legislature.

There are examples of these unconventional structures abroad, too, even though they aren’t common. The Green Party of England and Wales operates with a “job share” structure: Both leaders take turns in the top job. The New Zealand Greens have co-leaders, and their party boasts eight MPs and a confidence-and-supply agreement with the government. And in Israel, a last-minute electoral pact between Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, the two centrist challengers to incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu, married their parties with a pledge for one to govern for 2½ years and then switch places with the other. Their coalition ultimately failed to unseat Mr. Netanyahu, but it nevertheless made a strong showing.

There are also, of course, caricatures of this model. In France, far-left party Lutte Ouvrière is governed by a central committee, embodied by a spokesperson. The leadership is shadowy and opaque, giving rise to the accusation that the party is, essentially, a Trotskyist cult.

Still, Canada’s parties could take a cue from the trend.

Only 21 per cent of Conservative Party voters, after all, cast their first ballot for Mr. Scheer. Even by the 13th round, less than 51 per cent opted for the man who would become leader. Is it so odd to envision that he could split his responsibilities with another contender for that post? Maxime Bernier, the man he edged out, for instance? Or Lisa Raitt, a candidate with significantly more experience in government?

And perhaps, given Mr. Trudeau’s poll numbers, he should appoint Chrystia Freeland to take over the day-to-day travails of being prime minister so he can hit the hustings and work to rebuild party support as a kind of external Liberal leader.

Mr. Singh, meanwhile, was severely hobbled by his absence from Parliament. Now that he’s there, things don’t seem to be going much better – and they’re actually getting worse in Quebec. Is it inconceivable that Quebec lieutenants Guy Caron or Alexandre Boulerice could round out his role in a power-sharing agreement?

Hell, even Ms. May could use a break.

When she first became leader, she says, her kids were grown and she was “empty-nesting,” so working constantly was an option. The travel to and from her B.C. riding, which she has represented since 2011, takes 8½ hours. She has, until now, insisted on taking only one day off a month. (She just got married and is now pushing for two days off.)

So beyond the democratic benefits she sees in less leader-focused party structures, she says a co-leader policy could encourage more people to get into politics. Not everyone, after all, is willing to sacrifice their personal life for politics. When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave birth while in office, she took just six weeks of maternity leave, leaving Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters to take the helm. But even then she didn’t really take the leave – she insisted to the public that she would continue to have a hand in major decisions and read briefings, making Mr. Peters a largely lame-duck figure. It’s no wonder she is just the second leader ever to be pregnant while leading a country: She barely had time to have the baby.

Co-leaders, work-share leaders, leadership cabals – they’re all ideas that, on paper, actually make a surprising amount of sense, in a number of different ways. That model might encourage more co-operative decision-making, compensate for the perceived failings of certain politicians to promote party unity and even encourage would-be mothers to run and take up high positions.

It would take some real gumption for a leader to admit they would be more at ease sharing their role. But perhaps, weird as it may be, that is exactly what we need in politics right now.