I talked about the United Conservative Party leadership review in Alberta in my previous post. It seems Mr. Kenney probably did a similar analysis to mine. Even though he technically won the review with 51.4% of the vote, he has decided to resign. It is almost certainly the right choice since there is no possible way the in-fighting within the party will end if he stays on. I do wonder if the approval number would have been higher if the whole pandemic thing hadn’t happened.
Now the real question is who ends up becoming the new leader. Hopefully, it will be someone who the party can unite behind, but also someone who will not be off-putting to the voters at large. On the balance, the province really cannot afford an NDP repeat performance. I also hope it won’t be any of the ring leaders of the dissent over the past couple of years since I don’t want them to be rewarded. In particular, I really hope it isn’t Brian Jean who has just been chucking a wobbly since he didn’t win the party’s inaugural leadership election.
Well, whatever happens will happen. At least there should be time for the party to get organized before the next provincial election, and for the new leader to have some experience in office (assuming the winner is an actual MLA, though technically the premier doesn’t strictly have to be an MLA).
Also, hopefully whoever wins continues the good stuff that Kenney’s regime has been doing.
What I do know for certain is that whoever wins is going to find out that whatever it is they wanted to do that Kenney wasn’t doing is going to be loads harder than they think it is, if it’s even possible.