After the NDP barred Bianca Mugyenyi from its leadership race, the party’s claims of renewal ring hollow. As Nora Loreto writes, her disqualification exposes how ideological gatekeeping and internal bureaucracy stifle democracy and make the NDP increasingly hostile to the kind of transformative politics it once embraced.

This leadership race is about far more than choosing the next leader of the NDP. After the so-called Red Wave allowed the Liberals to cling to power, the party has been effectively dead in the water. The race has become a conduit for members to express their desire to rebuild the party—to renew and transform it.

And yet, the decision to bar Mugyenyi suggests the opposite: this is not a party genuinely interested in renewal. By preventing a candidate from even clearing the vetting stage, the NDP leadership constricts who is allowed to participate, which ideas may be debated, and which political tendencies are kept safely out of the spotlight.

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    Mugyenyi, they say, is a proxy candidate. She acknowledged that she decided to run after her husband, Yves Engler, was denied entry into the race. The committee argued that this constituted a breach of “honesty, professionalism and integrity” and therefore disqualified her.

    From https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/yves-engler-barred-ndp-leadership-9.7010236

    Among other reasons listed in the NDP decision not to allow Engler’s candidacy are engaging in Rwandan genocide denialism, echoing Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine and making comments “consistent with antisemitic attitudes.”