Should there be a separate tag for leadership elections or should they be merged with the primaries tag?

Question

I saw there are quite a few questions about Conservative Party leadership elections. These are elections in which party members choose their party leader.

A few existing tags come to mind, but they don't fit perfectly:

• The election tag is normally used to refer to elections in which the general public votes for candidates representing different parties.

• The primaries tag covers elections in which party leaders are chosen, but the term primary is not common everywhere. I think it's mostly a US politics term, though there may be other countries that also it.

I can see two options, but they each have their pros and cons:

1. Since UK party leadership elections are the UK equivalent of primaries in the US, the primaries tag could be expanded to include UK leadership elections and other internal party elections in other countries. The main tag could be renamed to be more inclusive and country-specific names could be added as tag synonyms.

   • The benefit of this option is that similar processes of electing party leaders are grouped within the same tag.

   • The downside is that we can only have one tag name which shows as the main tag. When talking about the US, the term primary makes the most sense though it does not for some other countries. A generic term may seem out of place for most countries.

2. Create a newleadership-election tag which covers leadership elections for countries where that term is actually used. Questions about primaries keep using the primaries tag.

   • The benefit of this option is that the tag makes sense on those questions.

   • The downside is that questions covering similar processes in different countries are across two different tags.

Answer 1

There are 14 questions referencing 3 countries that use the term "leadership election". Most could use a leadership-election tag and at least one (and likely others) could use the tag..

I think a separate leadership-election tag is justified.

The problem I see with merging "leadership election" questions into primaries is in the generality of "primary". In the US, specifically, there are several types of primaries. While primaries may apply to other countries (some france questions use the tag), the characteristics of primaries and leadership elections, I feel, are sufficiently different. A separate leadership-election tag would serve to better connect askers and answerers.

As I see it, the relationship is:

parties --> party-operations --> leadership-election

rather than

election --> primaries --> leadership-election

That is, leadership elections are central to the operation of parties rather than just another type of election.

Answer 2

You are wrong about what primaries is for, it is not about party leadership but deciding who will be on the ballot in the main election

Public elections to decide which candidate represents a party at the main election

While I am not sure about the rest of the world the US primaries are used for every partisan election that have 2 or more people from the same party who wish to run for that office. It has nothing to do with party leadership at all and that is handled. In the US party leadership is handled within the party and is not a public choice.

Addressing the comment about closed versus open party primaries and it should be remembered in both systems it is possible for non party members to vote with a little work. In an open system it is still voting for which member of the party should represent them and is about the party even if anyone can vote. In a close system it is still possible for someone to switch parties and cast a vote just like they would in an open system. This is important to remember in a two party system when one party doesn't have to worry about who wins and members can switch to the other party to vote as please.

Some clarification on what I mean by partisan election based on how it has been used in the US where I live.

partisan election: party affiliations are listed on the ballot is used for narrowing down the candidates in primary elections.

non-partisan election: no party election is listed on the ballot and it is not used in narrowing down candidates in primary elections.

Based on a comment from Rick Smith on the question something like a party-operations could work for this and it could cover deciding party leadership no matter how it is done. It should be able to leadership elections no matter how they are decided.