The first round of the Progressive Conservative leadership race ended this weekend in line with many people’s expectations.
How the next ballot will turn out, however, is anyone’s guess.
As you may well know, one candidate was able to capture at least 51 per cent of the vote, so we now face a second ballot. Gary Mar finished in the lead, much as everyone expected, with Horner and Redford close behind.
In our area, Doug Horner took the lead, much as one could expect with his connections to the area an endorsement from our own esteemed MLA Ken Kowalski.
The one surprise, perhaps, is the lower turnout for this leadership race in comparison to the vote that put Ed Stelmach in the Premier’s seat. Only 60,000 people cast their votes this time around, in comparison to the 97,000 Albertans who voted in 2006.
One must remember that, in the last leadership race, many people who were not card-carrying Conservatives by any stretch of the imagination took out memberships simply so they could vote on the next leader.
Also, the lower turnout may be indicative of the support that the Wildrose Alliance have managed to syphon off of the Conservatives.
Granted, it seems that the Wildrose Alliance is somewhat out of favour these days, as indicated by a poll that was released in July showing the Conservatives were well on their way to winning another majority in Alberta. But they’re still the PC Party’s closest contenders. This is why this second leadership race is, in a way, more crucial during the first. The Wildrose Alliance’s fortunes surged at a point last year where the Conservatives were beset on all sides by controversy.
A strong leader could maintain the good fortunes of the Conservatives … or a weak one could lead them to near-ruin again.
So who will be the next Premier, now that the field has been thinned? Gary Mar has the lead, but he was still not popular enough to win this first ballot. Stelmach’s victory in the 2006 race shows us that nothing is guaranteed, no matter how popular one candidate may be. We’ve gone through the perfunctory and largely predictable set-up to this final stretch of the race.
Now things get interesting.
