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In a governmental system, aparty leader acts as the official representative of theirpolitical party, either to alegislature or to the electorate. Depending on the country, the individual colloquially referred to as the "leader" of a political party may officially beparty chair,secretary, or the highest political office.
The party leader is often responsible for managing the party's relationship with the general public and leading the competition against political rivals, similar to the role of aparty spokesperson. As such, they will take a leading role in developing and communicatingparty platforms to the electorate.
In manyrepresentative democracies, party leaders compete directly for high political office. It is thus typical in such states (notably in theWestminster system) for the party leader to seek election to thelegislature and, if elected, to simultaneously serve as the party'sparliamentary leader. In several countries utilizing theparliamentary system, if the party leader's political party emerges with amajority of seats in parliament after ageneral election, is the leading party in acoalition government, or (in some instances) is the largest party in aminority parliament, that party's leader often serves as theprime minister. Thus, in the politics of several countries utilizing theparliamentary system, a political party's leader is treated as a de facto candidate for prime minister by the media and the general public, even if said office is technically not directly elected.
Party Head or leader of a political party, subject to party's constitutional document need not be elected member of legislature and is therefore different from leader of parliamentary committee of a party.
This is much harder to do inpresidential andsemi-presidential systems, where the chief executive is apresident who can only be removed by a specialimpeachment (typically involving a legislativesupermajority, an investigation by aconstitutional court, or both), and removal entails either asnap election or automatic succession to office by avice president; therefore, the party's de jure internal leader either takes a background role (such as the Chairs of theDemocratic, andRepublican parties in the United States, who serve more so as the chief administrative officers of their respective political parties), or the leadership may be automatically bestowed on an incumbent president who belongs to the party (such as theDemocratic Progressive Party in Taiwan). In countries using the Westminster system, the leader of the largestpolitical party not within the government serves as theleader of the opposition.
InCanada, the leaders of all majorpolitical parties are chosen during their respective political party'sleadership conventions upon the completion of aleadership election. Exceptions to this process sometimes occur when Members of Parliament leave their former party to form a new party; examples of this include whenJean-François Fortin quit theBloc Québécois to formStrength in Democracy in 2014 and whenMaxime Bernier quit theConservative Party to form thePeople's Party of Canada in 2018.
The leaders ofcommunist parties often hold the title ofgeneral secretary (e.g.General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union andGeneral Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party) and the officeholder is usually considered theparamount leader of China. On 15 November 2012,Xi Jinping was elected General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party at the18th Communist Party national congress.[1][2]
The party organizations themselves and also their representatives (such as the chairperson, who is the party leader, and other board members) play a much more prominent role in German politics than they do in many other countries, where the parties are mainly represented by their members and leaders in government. Although the party leaders often also hold important public offices (such asgovernment minister orparliamentary leader), those roles are clearly separated, even by law. Consequently, it does occasionally happen that the leaders of a German party are not even members of parliament, such asSaskia Esken andLars Klingbeil, who are incumbent the chairpersons of the (governing)Social Democrats. This sometimes leads to open conflicts between the party leadership, itsparliamentary group and its members of government.
In theNetherlands, the party leaders are the most senior politicians within thepolitical parties in the Netherlands. The leaders outwardly act as the 'figurehead' and the main representative of the party. Within the party, they must ensure political consensus. At election time the leader is always theLijsttrekker (top candidate) of theparty list. Outside election time the leaders most often serve asParliamentary leader of their party in theHouse of Representatives, some party leaders opt to serve in the cabinet as aminister.
In theRepublic of Korea, Representatives of most political parties are elected through elections of party members. The representative of theDemocratic Party of Korea is Song Young-gil, who was elected in May 2021, and the representative of the conservative oppositionPPP isLee Jun-seok, a famous young politician who was elected in June 2021. In the Democratic party's presidential election, it is also elected through public opinion polls, not party members. For the PPP, however, they calculate the public opinion poll and the party member poll by 50:50.
The major political parties in Taiwan are theDemocratic Progressive Party and theKuomintang.
The Democratic Progress Party's constitution stipulates that the President may serve directly as Party Chairman without an election during the ruling period, and that the Party Chairman is elected by party members during the opposition period. The Party constitution of the Kuomintang provides that the party chairman is directly elected by party members.
The current chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party is PresidentLai Ching-te. The current chairman of the Kuomintang is former Vice PremierEric Chu.
InTurkey, the party chairpersons are thede facto party leaders. The leaders of all majorpolitical parties are chosen during their respective political party'sleadership conventions upon the completion of aleadership election. Exceptions to this process sometimes occur when Members of Parliament leave their former party to form a new party. It is possible to co-chair a party. The party leader is the most prominent politician of the party and is usually considered to become thehead of government. However, a party leader may also put forward a different candidate for the elections. The party leader (chairperson) can not be the same as the party'sGeneral Secretary.
The method of selection of the party leader varies from party to party, though often it will involve an election involving all or part of the party membership. In some parties, only incumbent members of theparliamentary party, or particular party office-holders, may vote; in others, such as theBritish Labour Party, though the entire membership is eligible to vote, some electors may have a much larger share of the vote than others (see alsoSuperdelegate for a similar concept). If only one candidate emerges, they are said to be "elected byacclamation" or "ratified" by the general membership (sometimes the term "anointed" occurs informally or in media discourse).
Sir Keir Starmer isleader of the Labour Party andPrime Minister, whileKemi Badenoch was elected the leader of theConservative Party, and thusLeader of the Opposition, in November 2024.
If elected, political parties have party leaders in the executive branch of the United States government. ThePresident becomes thede facto leader of their respective political party once elected, and theVice President likewise holds a leadership role as both the second-highest executive officer and thePresident of the Senate. However, major parties also generally have a National Committee as their governing body, which has separate leadership roles.
The legislative branch, otherwise known as theUnited States Congress, is made up of the upper chamber, theSenate, and the lower chamber, theHouse of Representatives, with party-elected leaders in each. The leader of the party with most of the representation (sometimes called the party-in-power) in each case is known as themajority leader, whereas the leader of the opposing party with the most members is known as theminority leader.
Party leaders in the United States Senate have been elected by their respective political parties' caucuses since 1913. They include President of the Senate Kamala Harris,President Pro Tempore of the United States SenatePatty Murray, Senate Majority LeaderChuck Schumer and Senate Majority WhipDick Durbin on the Democratic side, and Senate Minority LeaderMitch McConnell and Senate Minority WhipJohn Thune on the Republican side.
The party leaders of the House of Representatives are elected by their respective parties in the House bysecret ballot. The Republican Party is represented in the House by Speaker of the House of RepresentativesMike Johnson, whereas the Democratic Party is represented by Minority LeaderHakeem Jeffries. In the House of Representatives, the most powerful official is the House-electedSpeaker.
Ken Martin serves as the chair of theDemocratic Party, whileMichael Whatley serves as the chair of theRepublican Party.
