Lib Dem Siobhan Benita drops out of delayed London Mayor race
27 July 2020, 10:31
Liberal Democrat London mayoral hopeful Siobhan Benita has ditched her campaign to run for the city's top job.
The Lib Dem candidate is the second to drop out of the race for City Hall after independent Rory Stewart quit the race earlier in the year.
The election was originally set to be held in May but was then postponed for a year due to the impact of the coronavirus lockdown.
Ms Benita said the delay meant she was not able to commit to another full year of campaigning.
She said: "The demands on a candidate are significant and an election of this scale, particularly in an unpaid role, means it's really difficult to get other work.
"And unfortunately with the delay due to the pandemic I'm simply not able to commit to another full year of campaigning and to leading the type of campaign that I really want to lead in London."
The Liberal Democrats came fourth in the 2016 mayoral election won by Labour's Sadiq Khan.
In May, independent hopeful Rory Stewart said he said he would not be able to beat the "huge machines" of the Conservatives and Labour over a protracted two-year campaign.
“The point about an independent campaign is it needs to be a sort of quite quick insurgency where you really build excitement over a few months,” he said.
Some 5.9m voters are registered to vote in the capital with the mayoral election taking place every four years.
