Former Green Party leader Elizabeth May has given her full support to her embattled alternative, Annamie Paul, on Tuesday.
“I stepped down as leader of the Green Party lower than two years ago, despite our greatest ever leads to electing three MPs, knowing it was time for brand new leadership,” she said in an announcement. “That recent leader is Annamie Paul.”
Paul was facing a non-confidence vote from the party’s federal council that she confirmed Monday had been cancelled. She opened up concerning the difficulty she has experienced since becoming leader of the party.
“This experience has been incredibly painful for me and for my family, and I need to be up front about that. It is incredibly hard to have your integrity questioned if you value it a lot,” she said Monday.
In early June, Green MP Jenica Atwin crossed the ground to the Liberals after expressing her stance on the Israel-Palestinian conflict on Twitter — a move that has since made public internal party conflicts.
May, currently considered one of the Greens’ only two MPs, said on Tuesday that Atwin’s defection stays “deeply troubling.”
“That loss is painful, however the misplaced anger, blame and name-calling which have followed it are doing much more damage than the event itself,” she said.
May has avoided the highlight since stepping down because the party’s leader after 13 years on the helm and said she has played no role within the federal council, which has been central within the movement against Paul.
She emphasized that “only members” have the authority to call Paul’s leadership into query.
“We want to drag together for what appears to be an imminent election campaign,” she said.
