The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7389 p244
25 February 2006

Society summary

Self-nomination is dropped from the election of the Society's Officers

The Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has approved a revised procedure for the election of the Society's Officers that no longer allows Council members to nominate themselves for office.

At the February Council meeting, when the Council considered a recommendation from the Governance Committee for revisions to the current election procedure, Sylvia Hikins said that she was uneasy about the idea of self-nomination. She considered it good practice to have a nomination and seconding arrangement.

The President said that self-nomination had been debated more than once since its introduction five years ago. On each occasion the Council had decided that that was what it wanted, but that did not mean it could not change it.

Marcia Saunders said that there had been disagreement within the Governance Committee. The committee’s professional adviser was clear that he thought that self nomination was not appropriate.

Alan Kershaw said that he had been surprised at the very idea of self-nomination. Where else did it exist? If someone stood up and volunteered for an officer post it made it difficult for anybody else to do so because they would immediately be creating a confrontation. In contrast to self-nomination, the nomination and seconding of candidates by other Council members showed the degree of support and the direction from which it came. He therefore proposed an amendment to do away with self nomination and have a procedure whereby candidates are nominated and seconded by other Council members.

The President said that he thought the idea was sensible.

Sid Dajani said that he supported self-nomination because it was time effective. The credibility was in the vote, not in how many people supported candidates in nominating and seconding them.

The President then put the proposal to a vote. It was carried.

The Council also rejected a proposal that there should be a secret ballot in the election of Officers even when there was only one candidate for election.