Britain's Labour Party gave itself four months today to elect a new leader who will face the task of rejuvenating a party out of power for the first time since 1997.
Labour said candidates to be leader would declare themselves from May 24th to 27th, hustings would take place in June and July and balloting would run from August 16th to September 22nd. The winner will be announced at the annual party conference on September 25th.
Interim leader Harriet Harman dismissed suggestions that such a long process could allow divisions to fester, inflicting further damage on the party at a time when it should be adapting to the new political landscape of a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition.
"I don't think there will be instability. One of the ways in which members will judge the candidates is how responsibly they play their part in the leadership election," she said.
The position came up for grabs when Gordon Brown stepped down a week ago as prime minister and party leader. A Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance is in power after this month's election, the first coalition since World War Two.
"(The leadership contest) is going to be a very important opportunity for us to reflect on the result of the general election, to renew the Labour Party and to re-engage with the British people," Ms Harman told reporters.
The frontrunner is David Miliband (44), who was foreign minister in Brown's government. A former adviser to Mr Brown's predecessor Tony Blair, the cerebral Miliband is seen as the candidate of the party's "Blairite" or centrist wing.
The only other candidate to come forward so far is his brother Ed Miliband (40), the former energy and climate change minister. His supporters say he is a unity candidate who would end years of tensions between the so-called Blairite and Brownite wings of the party.
The brothers are expected to face a challenge from Ed Balls (42), the Brownite former schools minister who is popular with the more left-leaning elements of the Labour Party.