A nomination contest, in

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

politics, is the process by which a political party chooses their candidate for the next general election. Each nomination contest is held by the party's local

riding association An electoral district association (), commonly known as a riding association () or constituency association, is the basic unit of a political party at the level of the electoral district An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) distr ...

. On occasion, a political party's head office may bypass the nomination contest and directly appoint its preferred candidate. This tends to be controversial, however. Nomination contests are most commonly held during the three to six months immediately preceding an election call, or in the first week of an election campaign.

See also