Election Summary
Posted on June 30, 2004
Filed Under Politics |
If you watched the election converage, it was like a horse race. The Liberals were out of the gate first (taking most of the Atlantic seats), the Bloc caught up quickly around the first bend through Quebec, but then the Liberals jumped out to a big lead going through the back stretch. Around the final corner the Conservatives closed in on the lead through Alberta, but the Liberals coasted to a close win down the home stretch with gains in B.C.
In all 135 Liberal seats, 99 New Conservative seats, 54 Bloc seats, 19 NDPers, and one independent that was an Reform/Alliance but was booted by the Conservatives. A majority requires 155 seats, the combined Liberal and NDP seats are one shy of this number. The Liberals will lose one more seat to the speaker (unless they choose one from the Conservatives or the Bloc, unlikely).
This means there will likely be no coalition, increasing the probablility we will be going to the polls again sooner rather than later. My prediction is that the government will fall, or the Liberals will find support from the NDP and Bloc to accelerate its social agenda and win its majority support back. In either case, we will be voting again before the end of 2005.
The issue of proportional representation has be raised by the NDP for obvious reasons. All the other (major) parties won a larger proportion of the seat, than their respective percentage of the popular vote. The NDP how ever earned 15% of the vote but only 7% of the seats. If the proportional representation (PR) movement has an impact we will likely be faced with many more minority goverments in the years to come.
Even without PR, there may be more minority goverments in elections to come because the central vote will be now split with the Green Party. By earning about 4% of the vote, the Green will be receiving just over $1M per year in party financing.
In conclusion, hopefully this will mean the end of the poli talk for at least a year.
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