DCHP-2

leadership convention DCHP-2 (October 2016)

• n. — Politics

  a convention held by a political party in order to elect a new leader.

  Type: 5. Frequency — Leadership convention is by far most frequent in Canada, where it is the established term (see Chart 1). The term may be Canadian in origin as well, as the earliest recorded usage is Canadian (see the 1903 quotation). In the US, similar occurrences are called "national conventions", e.g. the Democratic National Convention. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the first national leadership convention was held in 1919 (see Canadian Encyclopedia reference), but the 1903 quotation shows that this system was already operating on a provincial or regional level at that time, at least in British Columbia.
  See also COD-2, s.v. "leadership convention", which is marked "Cdn".