Edited sentence: After surviving an attempt to remove him as leader and ban him from the party, Hanni led the party's 24 candidates into the 2009 provincial election in which the party won 2% of the popular vote.Hanni resnged as leader in June 2009, along with eight members of the party's board of directors, saying that he "spent much of the last four years fighting a long and protracted battle with a group of dissidents.The party is to elect a new leader at its annual general meeting on September 26, 2009