in 2016, malone stood in the green party leadership election, following the announcement that incumbent leader natalie bennett would not be standing. he was running his campaign to encourage the party to focus more on finance and economics. during the campaign, he attended hustings and gave interviews to various news outlets covering the election. "left foot forward" speculated that "he is likely to win the support of many not backing the bartley-lucas ticket" and "to come in the top three." voting took place from 25 july to 25 august, and the result was announced on 2 september at the party's autumn conference. the result was a victory for jonathan bartley and caroline lucas, who won as a job share candidacy with 86% of the vote. malone came second with 956 votes, which equated to 6.1% of the vote.