SENATOR FIONA O'Malley will launch her campaign to succeed Mary Harney as Progressive Democrats leader at a press conference at party headquarters in Dublin tomorrow morning.
The Dún Laoghaire-based senator is expected to be one of two candidates who will have formally sought the position by the closing date for nominations on Monday. The second will be the party's other Senator, Ciarán Cannon, from Galway East.
The theme of Ms O'Malley's campaign is the need to rejuvenate the party and reconnect with its grassroots and its core values.
She intends to counter the argument that the party no longer has a niche in Irish politics because its agenda has been completed, or has been subsumed into the value-system of other parties.
She will say that there are a new set of challenges and choices facing Irish society for which the the party can offer the type of "practical and imaginative solutions" it applied in the past.
Mr Cannon's campaign will also strongly emphasise the need for renewal and reform in the party. He is also expected to promise inclusivity for the ordinary membership of the party.
Both candidates will travel to Cork on Monday for the first of a series of head-to-head debates. The contest will be decided by an electoral college made up of the parliamentary party (40 per cent); local authority members and the national executive (30 per cent) and the party's ordinary members (30 per cent).
The new leader will be announced on April 16th.
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