Running mate

A running mate is a person running together with another person on a joint ticket during an election. The term is most often used in reference to the person in the subordinate position (such as the vice presidential candidate running with a presidential candidate) but can also properly be used when referring to both candidates, such as by saying Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla, and Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, were running mates in reation to the most recent presiential elections held in Indonesia and Kenya respectively.

Running mates may be chosen, by custom or by law, to balance the ticket geographically, ideologically, or personally; two examples of such a custom are in Nigerian presidential elections, in which a presidential candidate from the predomiantly chritsian south is typically matched with a vice presidential candidate from the predomiantly muslim north, and vice-versa, and the Bulgarian presidential election, 2016, in which both candidiates who went on to the second round of voting, Rumen Radev and Tsetska Tsacheva, had running mates of the opposite gender. The object is to create a more widespread appeal for the ticket, and the results can range from assisting the resulting pair of candidiates in appealing to a larger basis of people to deterring voters who were initially inclined to vote for the running candidate but have been put off by the choice of the running mate.

The term is usually used in the Countries in which the offices of President and Vice President are both directy elected on the same ticket, in reference to a prospective Vice President. However, there are Countries, such as the Philippines and (nominally) Cyprus, in which the President and Vice-President are elected on separate tickets, and frequently, this results in them being from different political parties - indeed, when the Philippine Vice-Presidential position was restored in 1987, no Vice-President has served from the President's party, even though candidates for both posts run jointly. Further, in other countries, such as Botswana and Kiribati, the Vice President is legally appointed by the President in all cases (unlike, for instance, the United States, in which the President appoints a Vice President only in case of a vacancy).

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