Democracies vote - they don't "impose"

Jeremy Hargreaves has written a typically thoughtful piece about the "Where's Lemby" conundrum:

Would electing Lembit as President “split the party”? No, I think that’s going a bit far. But, given where people are now, I do think that the party in the country effectively imposing Lembit as President on people who actually have to work with the person in that role, would be highly divisive.

The use of the word "imposing" really had me in hyper-twitch mode. I am no fan of Lembit, as my trenchant posts on the subject have demonstrated. However, the concept that if (big "if") the grass roots voted for Lembit (and how do we know who votes for anyone? - we can only guess) that they would be imposing Lemby on the FedEx (presumably) is rather...er....interesting.

When you take that in concert with Jeremy's note that the motion to allow the FedEx to elect their own chair was defeated, then the whole thing starts to become rather unpalatable.

Firstly, we should not assume that Lembit would get elected. Second, we shouldn't assume that if he was elected that it is because he is on TV a lot,as Jeremy suggests. He also attends a lot of constituency dinners and has been a very prominent conference performer for more years than I care to remember.

Everytime I see Lembit on the TV or in the press in "celebrity" mode, I really need a brown paper bag - pronto. (I suspect there are many grass roots members who feel similarly). It really is being hasty to, it seems, assume that Lembit will get a similar vote to that which Charlie-boy got for being on TV. Charlie actually did appear to have a bit of gravitas and wit when he appeared on telly. Lembit seems to aim for the cheaper end of the market. Have I mentioned when he was shown on TV laughing at a man apparently playing a xylophone with his.......er......honourable member? Yes, I have. I dine out on the story. It did happen.

But it really is starting to move away from the idea of the LibDems being a democratic party if we start assuming that if someone is elected by the party they will be "imposed" on the Federal Executive. If you did have the Fedex electing their own chair, then basically you would be saying that it's fine to have party democracy and fine to have the party electing a party President, as long as he or she doesn't actually preside. Come on!