Fits of morality are breaking out all over the place, as the two main federal parties each grapple with the messy business of choosing a new leader -- or disposing of the last.

Since both parties elect their leader by a direct vote of the members, and since both allow, indeed encourage, candidates to recruit new members to vote for them, each is now consumed with disputes over who should be allowed to become a member, and on what grounds.

But do not think this is mere grubby political hair-pulling. No, indeed. There are profound issues of principle at stake, issues of trust, and democracy, and, and, well, morality. Take the controversy now threatening to split the Liberal party, over the now famous "five form" rule. No doubt you have found this conflict every bit as riveting as I have, each parry and thrust in the argument over whether membership forms should be given out one at a time, or in bundles of five.

At any rate, eventually a compromise was struck, whereby the party's national executive agreed to"recommend" to their provincial counterparts that the party stick with the five- form limit, and not the one-at-a-time rule that the Ontario organization, in particular, had introduced last fall. But no sooner had that agreement been reached than the Ontario executive added a new wrinkle, insisting over the weekend that party officials be given the name and address of each prospective member in advance.

Pandemonium! Outrage! Blood in the streets! For the Ontario wing, like much of the party apparatus in general, is in the grips of supporters of Paul Martin. Supporters of rival candidates in the undeclared race to replace Jean Chretien, faced with a strange shortage of membership forms at their local riding offices -- also controlled by the Martin camp -- would find their efforts to recruit new members no less frustrated by the red tape at provincial HQ. Why, this was -- well, it was immoral, that's what it was.

Allan Rock, the Industry Minister, was first to reach the media. The new rule, he said, "would turn a flourishing democratic vehicle" -- that's the Liberal party, in case you're wondering -- "into a country club for elites, where only those who know the right password can get in." Those responsible were "sacrificing the democratic nature of our party" -- that would be the Liberal party, again -- "on the altar of their own ambition." Worse, said one of his minions, the Martinites were engaging in "racial profiling" trying to obstruct the busloads of Sikhs and other ethnic minorities who periodically and spontaneously decide en masse to join the Liberal party. Mr. Rock perhaps feels stronger about this issue than most, ever since hundreds of sudden converts to his cause were enlisted to take over the party's Manitoba organization.

As for Mr. Chretien's supporters, the incident has caused them to begin to wonder, as it was reported in Saturday's Ottawa Citizen, "whether any of the finance minister's inner circle of advisors can be trusted." As is well known, there is nothing in which the Prime Minister sets greater stock than the importance of keeping one's word, especially in party matters.

Meanwhile, over at the Canadian Alliance, they're dancing the same little minuet of humbug. The Harper campaign accuses the Day campaign of recruiting masses of supporters from"single-interest" (i.e. anti-abortion) groups to take over the party. The Day camp responds by accusing their opponents of running a "campaign of exclusion" aimed at religious minorities. As ever, it's not about who wins: It's the principle.

What principle is that, exactly? That leadership campaigns should be used as glorified membership drives? The Martin and Harper campaigns are surely self-interested in their desire to defend their parties from takeovers by "instant members" -- if the situations were reversed, they would argue the opposite case just as vehemently -- but they are just as surely right. It is wrong that people who have never worked for a party, never belonged to it, who may indeed have only the faintest idea of what it stands for (not such a handicap, in the Liberals), should be entitled to vote alongside lifelong partisans -- then disappear soon after.

But then, as I've argued before, it's wrong that the membership at large should be choosing the leader in any event. A leader's first job in our system of government is to captain the party's parliamentary delegation, and his first obligation is to command its confidence. Yet that tradition has deteriorated, in line with Parliament's dwindling status, until at last we reach the most ridiculous spectacle of all: two major parties, each stuck with a leader the caucus despises. And why not? Armed with a "mandate" from his busloads of instant supporters, he can effectively ignore the caucus, until the time comes to confirm himself in office by the same means.

Perhaps it is time the parties returned to letting the caucus elect the leader, rather than the membership. Undemocratic? Don't make me laugh.