Ed Miliband is pledging to lead Labour back to power within five years Ed Miliband says he is “increasingly confident” of victory in the race for the Labour leadership.
His aides say they are hopeful of a clean sweep win across each of the sections of the party’s electorate – MPs and MEPs, unions and party members.
It was expected that MPs would line up strongly behind his brother David, seen as front-runner in the contest so far.
The five leadership hopefuls are making their final pitches, with the result due to be announced on 25 September.
Ed Miliband told BBC Radio 4’s Today he was confident Labour would be able to form a majority government and would not be reliant on doing any deals with the Liberal Democrats.
He is hoping to bolster support among MPs by pledging to lead the party back into power within five years.
And he strongly defended his decision after the election to rule out working with Nick Clegg who he accused of making an “historic mistake” by going into alliance with the Conservatives.
The result of the leadership election – being contested by Ed Balls, Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham as well was the Miliband brothers – is due to be announced in 10 days’ time on the eve of Labour’s annual conference in Manchester.
There is an electoral college for the contest made up of three sections – MPs and MEPs; Party members; Trade union and other affiliated bodies – each worth 33% of the final result.
Voters rank candidates on their ballot papers with the last candidate eliminated in each round and their second preferences reallocated until one candidate has more than 50% of total support.
This voting system can make results difficult to predict as it can come down to second or even third preferences if no candidate wins more than 50% in the first round.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.