Trouble has been brewing for a while behind the scenes in the Green Party; today it boiled over in David Akin’s National Post piece, which highlighted the upheaval over May’s leadership in the wake of a mass exodus of senior party officials. The exodus included the firing of Political Campaign Director Catharine Johannson, the resignation of Executive Director Maureen Murphy, and the resignation of the party’s Federal Council Donna Dillman — all in addition to the recent firing of 4 of the party’s 7 organizers and 3 other staff resignations, including its long-awaited and just-hired Quebec Press Secretary. Rumors are that the Greens are facing dire financial consequences, which has no doubt prompted widespread cutbacks.

With the release of Akin’s article, some May supporters are now calling for the removal from the party of the “traitor” who forwarded the “private” emails referred to by Akin (“The traitor should be found. They should be removed from the federal council and then their membership should be revoked… and elsewhere…”I’d like to remind everyone that the 9th circle of hell is reserved for the traitors”). The only problem is that the emails were not private — they were sent to public email listservs that are accessible to all GPC members, so quite literally any GPC member could be the “traitor” — that might make for a long witch-hunt.

Given the turmoil over May’s leadership and attempts to weed out dissidents, it is perhaps not surprising that some are attempting to postpone or cancel the constitutionally-mandated leadership vote to avoid May having to face the leadership when her 4-year term expires in August.

Interestingly, as the GPC turmoil was unfolding this weekend, May was rightfully chastising Stephen Harper for proroguing Parliament. But the parallel to attempts to postpone the GPC leadership vote are hard to miss. In fact, you can easily substitute “postpone” for “prorogue”, “Prime Minister” for “GPC leader”, and “Greens” for “Liberals” in May’s weekend comments and you have a description of what’s unfolding within the GPC…

“To postpone or not to postpone, that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the minds to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Greens or simply to avoid that sea of troubles and, by postponing, end them.”

In one of last remaining media platforms she has (Jane Taber’s blog), May deflects criticism by declaring that “somewhere around 90 per cent of our membership (my guess!) is totally supportive all of the time.” There’s no need to guess, this support can be confirmed by simply proceeding with the mandated leadership vote in August. I have no doubt that May would prevail, although 90% support might be an exaggeration.

Of course, postponing the leadership vote seems to be moot now that May appears to have acquiesced to holding the vote — as she told Akin: “I’m happy to subject myself to anything.” Hopefully, this puts to rest the postponement drama, because it is becoming increasingly clear that the GPC has much bigger tofu to fry.

Update: I guess when it rains, it pours.