Julian Assange WikiLeaks Party Fails over Preference Decisions
Julian Assange Wikileaks Party suffered bouts of resignations from two of the party's most popular candidates, Senate candidate in Victoria, Leslie Cannold, and National Council, Daniel Mathews.
There were also reports circulating that campaign staff and council members are to follow suit.
While reports were circulating that the resignations were motivated by strong approval against the party's preference decisions, Ms Cannold was somewhat elusive in her answers during an interview with the ABC PM program.
Host Mark Colvin asked Ms Cannold whether " it's fair to say though that somebody is overriding the democratic process within the WikiLeaks Party?"
"I wouldn't, I mean surely whenever you have a workplace review, which is essentially what we're talking about here, what you're doing is you're saying we know by definition something went wrong, because we know that the democratic decision was to do X and X didn't happen. That's a problem. So we need to look into why that's the case. And that would have been what I would have expected our party to, very eager to do, because who wants to be in a party where what is properly decided doesn't actually get implemented on the ground," Ms Cannold said.
When asked about her letter hinting on other members of the party resigning, Ms Cannold still chooses to play it safe.
"Look I have been with people all day but I feel, and we all have felt, that it was important for each one of us to be able to come out when it was time for us and to put part their own stories. So I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but certainly, you know there has been a collective concern about the variety of things that I did say on the statement."
Meanwhile, a report from The Sydney Morning Herald said that Mr Mathews was pained about his decision to resign from WikiLeaks Party as he was a friend to Mr Assange since their years in the university.
"I am afraid that my experiences with this party are not all positive", Mr Mathews said.
While Ms Cassanold refused to admit that it was the party's preference decision that took them apart, Mr Mathews said that, indeed, it was the issue on preference that had caused the "catastrophic loss to the party."
Ms Cannold had also tweeted that there had been 5 more members resigning from the WikiLeaks party while Sam Castro, Kaz Cochrane and Luke Pearson and three campaign staff had already tendered their resignation in Wednesday.
On the other hand, WikiLeak's Senate ticket in NSW, Alison Broinowski said that she does not want to just give up the party unless she knows of a serious reason to do so.
"There are a number of different people involved so there are different explanations and justifications for what occurred, but this is not what I joined the party for. I don't think the preference issue matters fundamentally," Ms Broinowski said.