Cannold quits, Wikileaks haemorrhages

Leslie Cannold is determined to keep the bastards honest - those within the WikiLeaks Party, at least. She has resigned as Julian Assange's number two running mate for the Senate, saying that the party's preference problems were "the final straw". This indicates there were other deep divisions.

For a new political party with transparency at its core, the fact that mainstream media had a breaking news story about Cannold quitting on 21 August many hours before any such news was released on the WikiLeaks Party's official website, Facebook page or Twitter account is strange.

Or – perhaps not. For as Mark Colvin so succinctly noted in his interview with Cannold on ABC News PM "this degree of division must now put paid, mustn't it, to any chance that the WikiLeaks Party had of getting a Senate candidate up?"

News of Cannold's decision was carried within hours by the Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, ABC Online, The Australian, the Herald Sun, SBS , and The Guardian.

But not, officially, by the WikiLeaks Party. The same party, no less, whose Senate candidates jointly issued a statement on 10 August about how the Daily Telegraph's Election coverage undermines Australian Democracy; "when such blatant political positioning is combined with the pitiful facts of the extreme concentration of ownership in the Australian media, we have to be concerned for the health of Australian democracy."

That is the type of statement that may come back to haunt a party less than eager to air its dirty washing in transparent view of everyone. Indeed, on the WikiLeaks Party website, there is a repost and comments of a 2010 talk Julian Assange did with Director of TED Talk Chris Anderson. Assange said, "Can it possibly be true, it's a worry isn't it, that the rest of the world media is doing such a bad job that a little group of activists is able to release more of that type of information than the rest of the world press combined."

Perhaps those who live by these words should be prepared to stick by them during the election. Is it too much to expect an immediate response from the WikiLeaks Party about Cannold's resignation? Or from Assange about his second running mate's sudden exit?

As it now stands, the infighting and deep divisions within the Party of Transparency are making the Greens seem for many the only reliable option if one is deeply disgusted with both the Labor and Liberals stance on refugees.

As reported in The Guardian, Cannold resigned amid a storm over the party's preferences, which favoured rightwing extremists ahead of the Greens.

While a statement was put out by the WikiLeaks Party about an "administrative error" in NSW,

Cannold said inher own statement: "To keep being a candidate feels like I'm breaking faith with the Australian people, and those in the media who assist me to communicate with the public, many of whom I've had a long and respectful professional relationship with.

"This is because by being in this role I am implicitly making a statement that The Wikileaks Party is what it claims to be: a democratically run party that both believes in transparency and accountability, and operates in this way."