NATIONAL PARTY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27082, 17 May 1949, Page 6

NATIONAL PARTY

OAMARU ELECTORATE MR W. R. WILLIAMS WITHDRAWS “ The National Party is composed <?f men and women of all shades of political opinion who are opposed to Socialism and Communism,’’ said Mr S. I. Fitch, chairman of the North Otago branch of the National Party, to the Oamaru representative of the Daily Times yesterday. “No preference of any kind has been extended to any candidate who has been nominated for selection as the Oamaru electorate National Party representative in the coming election. All must go to selection at next Saturday’s meeting of delegates on exactly the same footing. There is not an official candidate of the executive. There is no such thing as an official candidate. The members of the executive who are delegates to Saturday’s meeting will vote as individuals, and as they think fit." Mr Fitch was replying to a statement communicated to the press by Mr W. R. Williams, of Oamaru, who, in resigning from the National Party and withdrawing his name from the nominations for selection as National Party candidate, stated that the majority of the Executive Committee were “ Conservatives,” and the method of selection of the candidate by a meeting of delegates rather than by a postal ballot’was not in the interests of those with a Liberal outlook. Mr Williams further charged that Dr A. S. Moody had addressed a meeting of National Party members in Oamaru “ more or less ” arranged by the executive, and in consequence would go to the selection meeting as an official nominee. He stated that the party should postpone the selection, call for fresh nominations, and arrange for a postal ballot. Mr Fitch, in replying to Mr Williams’s allegations, said the meeting addressed by Dr Moody, who at the time was unknown to him, had been held before nominations were called for. The meeting was arranged, and the rent of the party centre paid for, by a group of individual party members. only a few of whom were members of the executive. The meeting was attended by many who were rot delegates to the selection meeting, and. therefore, would have no voice in the selection.

When the nominations for candidates were advertised in April, Dr Moody was nominated in the usual way. The question of postal votes had been fully discussed at the annual electorate meetings in 1948, and this method was rejected by a substantial majority.