It seems the easy victory the NDP were hoping for was all but swept away after the leadership debate. Granted the NDP are still 7% on average ahead of their closes rivals the Liberal party of British Columbia. It actually peculiar when you think about it that most of the recent provincial elections we had greatly diminished the lead of the front runner come election day (Mainly Quebec and Alberta).
This BC election isn't much different from the Quebec elections. A Liberal party slightly right wing being in power for over a decade, and a new opposition leader coming from the left hoping to change everything. The Major differences of course being that Quebec has the separatist movement and the Incumbent party in BC has a new young leader.
The point I am trying to get across is that I have a hypothesis that the BC Liberals will shrink that gap even more when the ballots are counted. I make this hypothesis based on experience.
First Experience:
In Quebec most people hated Charest, but a solid 30% still voted for him, why? Because Charest ran the economy angle and the I know what I am doing angle too. He made Marois and Francois Legault seem inexperienced and especially Marois bad for business. Christy Clark is playing the same angle. She wants to appear that she is the economically best choice for BC. And come election day Charest closed the 7% gap to a measly 0.7%. Christy Clark won't be as lucky, she isn't running against a sovereigntist who is banging the drums of an issue no one cares about. BC voters may last second buy into the BC Liberal rhetoric that they are better for the economy.
I would predict that the BC NDP will win a majority, and the BC Liberals a close 3-4 points behind. Anyways I hope that the BC Greens do well and carry at least one seat, and there was some hope in the last week with the Greens polling to in the low ten's, but now come election day the Green vote is the least stable and has diminished to 8-9 percent which may not even be attainable, as the BC greens are only running candidates in 61/85 ridings. Still I wish Jane Sterks and the Greens good luck!
"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." A Liberal-supporting, environmentalist blog. We blog according to our opinions, not those of the party or government. Free speech must win and that's why we have this blog. The views of two Montrealers and a Libertarian.
I don't think the situations in BC and Quebec compare well even though it appears the NDP will win a majority in BC.
ReplyDeleteCharest had some difficulty running the "experience and competent economic manager" angle when his government was mired in corruption scandals, and the commissions are still pursuing enquiries and further revelations of Liberal bagmen and mafia payoffs are emerging to date.
What BC does not have is a politically captive linguistic/cultural community wedded to a Liberal Party which will endure pretty much any scandal yet remain politically committed to the Liberal Party, sort of like Israel surrounded by a sea of Arabs. Without that base Charest Liberals would have fallen much further in vote percentage and seats retained.
Nor should the PQ vote be interpreted as a "separatist" vote per se, nor more than a vote for the NDP is a vote for "socialism", they'll talk about it and it's part of the platform, and maybe get around to it someday, but in the meantime they have a mandate to govern within the existing framework.
Rene
ReplyDeleteI think that Charest no matter what you think of him (And I am no fan!) did run successively as an experienced and competent economic manager, which is why he was able to get 30% of the vote. Which may sound bad, but when you consider that his approval rating at the time and the fact that he was polling way below the PQ most of the campaign, he didn't do all that terrible. For a scandal ridden party to be within 0.7% of winning isn't nothing.
But I do concede that you are right BC isn't Quebec, and neither of the parties in BC have a monopoly on a minority linguistic. I was making a comparison in terms of how both Liberal leaders frame themselves (as the best business choice), and how they managed to reduce the gap between them and their opponents.
P.S I don't think voting PQ is voting for separatism, but the fact that Marois decided to make seperatism a big campaign issue when no one wanted it to be.