the next co-kermits

I've been thinking in the last few days about who the Greens are going to put up for their leadership in the medium term.

It seems to me that there is a division in the party within those who are Green rather than Left and those who would identify as the reverse; the Green-Reds versus the Red-Greens if you will. Sooner or later this will out, probably around a leadership fight.

As it stands I would personally categorise both Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimmons as Green-Reds, (in fact I'd take the Red out for Donald), but Jeanette has so much mana that it hardly matters. But when she goes (and she had an agreement with her partner to lead the party until 2005, which I believe she has renegotiated for one more term, so she would almost definitely go in 2008) Rod will need a new co-leader. I can't see the Greens moving away from the co-leadership model, especially not for Rod, given the Green-Red, Red-Green make-up of the party.

So who have we got?

Locke, Bradford, Tanczos and Turei are all too scary to the electorate (although I would probably like all of them except Nandor, but then I'm not in the Greens, so who cares who I want).

Kedgeley is not going to wash with the Red-Greens, especially not when coupled with Donald.

Ian Ewen-Street is retiring in 2005, besides which I don't think two white men is a very Green look (which I suspect rules out Mike Ward too, who has had no profile so seems unlikely).

So this means the Greens need to bring in at least one new MP, possibly a Red-Green as opposed to a Green-Red, who is a real possibility for leadership. With only Ewen-Street standing down this is going to require a much better polling return than they are on now.

Of course this all assumes that Donald is still acceptable to the Green membership in the future (and that he wants to continue - I think this is a pretty safe bet given the man is very keen to be a Minister one day). If the party becomes more Red-Green than Green-Red his leadership would be less secure, and I am very curious about the nature of new recruits to the Greens since the Alliance was wiped out of Parliament in 2002 (especially after Matt McCarten pissed off a lot of Alliance unionists in the last two years).

Whoever the new Green MPs are in 2005 (if they get any) look out for a spunky not-mad woman who may be the new Jeanette...