US Human Rights Leader vies for VP

Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein has announced her vice presidential pick: Ajamu Baraka.  Baraka’s nomination is expected to be confirmed and accepted at the Green Party convention on August 6.

Ajamu Baraka is well known to US human rights activists as the founding director of the US Human Rights Network, a national network founded in 2003 to support the growing domestic human rights movement.  He has also served on the board of directors of Amnesty International.

The likelihood that Baraka will participate in a televised vice presidential debate is small, since the Commission on Presidential Debates requires polling at 15% of the electorate as a pre-requisite for participation.  The Green Party is currently polling at around 5%.  Still, this election year — with Sanders supporters swaying this way and that — is less predictable than most.  And even if Baraka is not invited to the televised debates, his presence on the campaign trail should help create pressure from the left for a deeper discussion of US human rights issues — a discussion that has been generally absent from this season’s campaigns so far.