Kingsley Maker

There are competing theories about why the King of Elections chose to step down as suddenly as he did over the holidays, promising to vacate his office by February.

Pundits have said that the dean of the world electoral community has decided that the Harperized electoral process is now too complex. With all the new rules, the process is unmanageable for one micromanager to handle, and as such, he just wants to get out of the way. Changes to the Act, Referenda on Senators, new financing rules - Oy, so much work. This version of the story doesn't make JPK look that great but it makes a lot of sense.

Only it is not true

There are a lot of factors that play into the decision of an Officer of Parliament to step down, particularly before he has to. It is no secret that there is little love lost between Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Harper, with the latter calling the former the 'tin-pot' dictator of democracy before he got a nice new house on Sussex.

This has not been lost on Mr. Kingsley, and rather than engender further controversy after he and the PMO got into it over convention fees, Elections Canada insiders have noted that he has been negotiating a succession plan with the PMO for over six months. Except it isn't so much a two way dialogue as it is a one way dialogue and it isn't so much a succession plan as it is to demand to pick his own successor: the current DCEO.

On the one hand, it is always a bad idea to hire from within. On the same hand, the PMO is not going to have their appointment power usurped by a lame duck's demands to retire a little early.

On the other hand, Harper is rumoured to be in the process of engineering his own defeat so that he can have a spring election. You know what a spring election requires? A Chief Electoral Officer - and preferably one with a little bit of experience in overseeing an operation that hires over 300,000 people for the writ period.

On a completely different shelf in a different room, the current CEO has been criticized for galavanting all over the world to help spread and support the development of democracy and the free and fair carriage of it. Not far behind him is the current DCEO. She is kind of a like a Deputy-Minister who is very dedicated to supporting her Minister. In fact, Commissionaires have caught the support on tape in the executive boardroom on the ninth flooor at Elections Canada. The details of the support is fairly well known at the executive level of the organization, and it isn't exactly a secret to people who interact with them on a daily basis.

Back to the two hands - Frustrated by the PMO's unwillingness to compromise (aka listen), the CEO has decided to force those hands a little bit. The gambit presumes that the DCEO would be appointed the interim-CEO in the event of an election, and would be elevated to the position full time once Parliament figures out how great she is: female, fluently bilingual, with two elections under her belt. Could it be any better? Huzzah!!!

Great plan - except for the fact that the first rule about getting rid of a pain in your side is to make sure it is gone. Expect the new CEO to be a strict constructionist libertarian - with a management style that is very different than his/her predecessor. Then expect the DCEO to be swiftly appointed as a citizenship judge, or to the Copyright Board, or to something equally inane for a very talented woman.

Best to rid the court of any of the former king's sympathizers for fear they would turn on you. Out damn spot.