Primary Election - Primaries Worldwide

Primaries Worldwide

• United States presidential primary.
  • Democratic Party presidential primaries (recent: 2008).
  • Republican Party presidential primaries (recent: 2012, 2008).
• Primary elections in Italy.
• Chile.
• Uruguay, since 1999.
• United New Democratic Party (South Korea, 2007).
• Armenia. In an innovation on 2007 November 24 and 25, one political party conducted a non-binding Armenia-wide primary election. The party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, invited the public to vote to advise the party which of two candidates they should formally nominate for President of Armenia in the subsequent official election. What characterized it as a primary instead of a standard opinion poll was that the public knew of the primary in advance, all eligible voters were invited, and the voting was by secret ballot. "Some 68,183 people . . . voted in make-shift tents and mobile ballot boxes . . ."
• United Kingdom. On August 4, 2009, Dr Sarah Wollaston was chosen by Open Primary as the Conservative Party candidate for Totnes, for the 2010 general election, the first time such a mechanism has been used to pick a prospective candidate for an election in the UK. This was after the current incumbent Anthony Steen decided to step down in the wake of the MPs expenses scandal. The Conservatives have plans to roll this out further and there are hopes other parties may nominate future candidates in this way.
• Colombia In 2006, the Liberal Party and the socialist Democratic Pole hold primary elections, electing Horacio Serpa as liberal candidate and Carlos Gaviria as candidate of the Democratic Pole. For 2010 presidential electiones, four parties held primary elections: The Liberal Party elected former minister Rafael Pardo as candidate, the Democratic Pole elected senator Gustavo Petro, the Conservative Party chose ambassador Noemi Sanin and the Green Party chose former mayor of Bogota Antanas Mockus.
• Republic of China (Taiwan): The Democratic Progressive Party selects all its candidates via opinion polls. The candidate with the highest poll rating will be nominated. The KMT selects candidates using a combination of opinion polls (worth 70%) and primary elections (worth 30%).