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Tom Monto

Was Klein popular in 1993?

[summary: 1993 debacle for NDP arose from gerrymandering, un-proportional results of FPTP, and voters backing Liberals due to strategic voting goals.]


Ralph Klein led the Conservative government to re-election in 1993. His party took 51 seats out of 83 (61 percent of the seats).


You would think that would mean he was popular but in fact most voters did not vote for him.


Only 45 percent of the voters voted Conservative.


Whether preferential voting - where votes cast of unsuccessful candidates could have been transferred and pooled instead of simply thrown in the wastebasket - would have made a difference is not known. But it is known that the vote count of the Liberals and NDP lumped together was more than the Conservative vote, and in fact was a majority of votes cast.


The drive to be the main opposition party to fight Klein - forced on voters by the two-party straitjacket that FPTP imposes - played a major role in the NDP's poor showing .


I am not making this up.


Just after the election Ray was quoted in the Maclean's Magazine along those lines:


... Martin attributes the NDP’s loss in Alberta almost exclusively to what he calls “strategic voting.” Thousands of traditional NDP supporters, he says, voted for the resurgent provincial Liberals in an attempt to oust the governing Progressive Conservatives led by Premier Ralph Klein. As a result, adds Martin, the Liberals captured 13 of 15 seats held by the NDP on its way to becoming Alberta’s official Opposition....


An unemployed crane operator in Martin’s own constituency was asked how he voted. He had supported the NDP in the past, he admitted, but voted Liberal this time. He said his main aim was to defeat Klein. Apparently he had felt the Liberals had better odds of doing so.


If only voters like him had been able to transfer their votes behind the most popular anti-Klein candidate, then the election wold likely have resulted in a far different outcome both for the legislature and for the province at large.


The last 30 years of history in Alberta could well have been different if the 1993 election had been conducted using a form of proportional representation. For example, a system that guaranteed majority rule would have made a great difference in the outcome.


With Klein suffering a rightful loss in his first election he fought as leader of the Conservatives, the drive to turn Alberta hard right and away from Lougheed's paternalistic and somewhat-balanced approach to oil development would have likely been nipped in the bud.


We might have missed one boom but also a couple busts as well!


All the 16 NDP MLAs sitting before the 1993 election lost their seats.


Ed Ewasiuk was among them. This loss is blamed on re-districting. His district was reconfigured to his electoral detriment. That kind of gerrymandering would have been fruitless and/or impossible under pro-rep, even STV.


In 1989 the NDP, having much of its voters concentrated in Edmonton, did better than normal for a relatively weaker party under FPTP. It took a good part of what its proportion of the vote warranted - with 26 percent of the vote it was actually due 22 seats.


The NDP vote in 1993 was half what it had been in 1989. It was still 11 percent of the vote. Thus the NDP was still due 8 seats. Instead under FPTP it won none.


If STV had been used in 1993, with Edmonton as a single district or divided into two or three multi-member districts, gerrymandering such as hurt Ewasiuk would have been reduced. The NDP would likely taken at least four seats in Edmonton under such a district-level proportional system.


Thanks for reading.

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