The U.K. Independence Party (Ukip) was accused Tuesday of manipulating the candidate selection process so it could install favored candidates.
According to leaked emails obtained by The Times, the right-wing party's selection process had been "massaged by an internal clique to suit pre-determined outcomes."
Andrew Moncrieff, a member of the party's governing committee, claimed in the emails that the selection process had become a "behind closed doors selection."
"There is the question of whether the final scores were massaged by an internal clique to suit pre-determined outcomes," Moncrieff wrote.
"What started out as an attempt to produce a transparent, equitable system has turned into another classic Ukip behind closed doors selection."
Moncrieff questioned why "paid party lackeys have done surprisingly well," and speculated that Nigel Farage, the Ukip party's leader, could be involved in the manipulation.
Ukip uses psychometric tests, interviews and assessments to screen potentially problematic candidates prior to the campaign for May's European parliament elections, according to the London Evening Standard.
One candidate, Douglas Denny, was selected during an open meeting to be the Portsmouth South parliamentary candidate only to later be dropped by leadership, The Times reported. Denny accused Ukip of being "immoral, undemocratic and deeply corrupt."
The party responded to the emails by saying that its selection process is fair.
"The results were not manipulated, and Nigel Farage had no hand whatsoever in the selection process, finding out the assessment results only at the NEC at which they were unveiled," a party spokesman said.
"The fairness of the process was, in fact, tested in court. The regional lists were not altered, except in Scotland where several candidates resigned, or where one or two candidates resigned in other regions. The process was not designed to ensure that anybody specific did not make the shortlist; it was designed, using external consultants, to ensure that comparatively unsuitable people did not make the shortlist, and worked well in that respect."
