More Nomination News

Another week, another MLA has announced that he won’t be seeking re-election. Yesterday Gerald Hawranik, MLA for Lac du Bonnet since 2002, announced he won’t be seeking re-election; bringing up the total of MLAs not seeking relection to 8 (5 PCs and 3 NDPs). 

I'm hesitant to say this puts the riding back into play. Hawranik won the riding with over 58% of the vote and a over 2000 vote lead. But the combination of redistribution, the riding lost a bit of the more PC southern edge, and the lack of an incumbent could put it back in play. 

The reason I'm hesitant to say that it will be in play is because the NDP will be facing much more serious challenges in current NDP ridings they need to keep in order to stay in government. So I'd be very surprised if they decided to pour a lot of time and energy in trying to get a seat that at best has a 50% of swinging in their favour.  As with most provincial elections, you win Winnipeg you win the keys to Broadway. So I don't expect too much of a push from the NDP outside the perimeter.

 

 In other PC Party news, Interlake candidate John Zasitko has been dumped by the party. I had my suspicions that something was brewing as for the past week and a bit my traffic sources from google had contained things such as  John Zasitko disallow PC candidate and the like. 

There hasn’t been much said about why Zasitko was dropped so I can only speculate as to what might have happened. The only thing I know about him is that he emerged as the surprised winner of a highly contested nomination in April last year. Plus, the letter from Senator Plett simply stated : "on the basis of its review of identified shortcomings with regard to your participation in the party's election preparedness program and campaign planning efforts."

If anything it sends a clear signal to other candidates that the party is taking election preparation seriously even if the election is still 8 months away. It will be interesting to see how things play out in this situation as Interlake is a riding that is probably high on the priority list for the PCs. What’s left to see if a second nomination race will take place and regenerate energy or if party HQ appoints a candidate with the results of the grassroots snubbing him or her. 

As for the NDP, they have nominated Paul Beckta in Charleswood and two incumbents have been re-nominated. Rob Altemeyer in Wolsely and Rosann Wowchuk in Swan River. 

The Liberals have nominated Twyla Motkaluk in Burrows.  She is the author of the blog http://ibitchabout.wordpress.com/ . 

Another MLA Retires

Yesterday St-Norbert MLA Marilyn Brick announced she wouldn't be running for re-election. Dan Lett has a really interesting piece on the nomination battle and potential leadership issues within the NDP here.

While the news of the retirement is good for the PCs, Lett's piece must have the PC's in an even better mood.

Let me explain, contesting the nomination of a sitting MLA will always make you enemies. Like Lett pointed out, there are probably now two entrenched camps in the riding. While Brick's decision to retire and not fully challenge for her seat does cool down the tensions, most likely they are still high.
Gurmail Mangat will most likely bring in some new blood and energy, however some will feel left out and may disengage. A divided membership is not a good way to enter a campaign.

The second factor that probably makes the PCs happy is that the Liberals seem to have a semi-decent candidate in Marcel Laurendeau. A former PC MLA he is most likely to attract a decent amount of support.

This is how I could see the scenario unfold in October to lead to a PC victory in St-Norbert. Given the situations the PCs will be running a strong campaign in the riding to start off.

The key in the riding for all parties will be small l liberals that switch between the NDP and Liberals. The loss of incumbency, a divided and not necessarily full strength NDP base in combination with a stronger challenge from the Liberals might result in a split left and centre-left vote and a PC victory.In past elections a weaker Liberal Party has benefited the NDP and a stronger one the PCs. I think the strength of the Liberals in this riding will have a big impact on the final result.

Thank you Mr. Hickes!

I have to say I'm not surprised to hear that George Hickes, Speaker of the Legislature and MLA for Point Douglas, won't seeking re-election but I am a tad saddened.

It is in large part due to Mr. Hickes that I was able to have such a great experience at the Legislature last year. Him and his office gave the Internship program incredible support and made the experience what it was!

As part of our program we had the chance to sit down and chat with him a few times and throughout the year he would always take the time to say hi and chat in the hallways. He had some amazing stories to share of his life prior to entering politics and was always keen to know how our experience was going.

He was well liked and respected by everyone at the Legislature and will be greatly missed.

I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity and the great experience!

Nomination News!

There has been lots of news in relation to nominations in the past week or so. Two long serving MLAs announced they won’t be seeking re-election, a former Olympian announced she was returning to the province to run for the Tories and two former Liberal candidates have been re-nominated.

Yesterday we heard that Len Derkach, who has been an MLA since 1986, won’t be seeking re-election. This decision avoids a potentially nasty nomination battle in the riding with Minnedosa MLA Leanne Rowatt . As mentioned in the Brandon West post, Leanne is losing her Minnedosa seat to redistribution. 

The PCs made a big splash in nomination news last week when Susan Auch, former Olympian, announced she would be seeking the nominations in Assiniboia.  There are two other declared candidates in the running. Kudos to the Tories for attracting a big name, the Auch announcement is sure to energize the Tory base. They have also nominated Rick Negrych in Burrows. Rick ran for the PC in 2007. 

Long-time MLA and current Minister for Advanced Education and literacy, Diane McGifford also announced she won’t be seeking re-election.  She has been an MLA for 16 years. Nominated in Fort-Garry-Riverview is James Allum, party executive and teacher at the University of Winnipeg and Kerri Irvin-Ross, current MLA for Fort-Garry, was nominated for the new riding of Fort-Richmond.  St-Vital and Radisson MLAs, Nancy Allan and Bidhu Jha were also re-nominated.  

The Liberals have re-nominated two candidates from the 2007 election. In La Vérendrye, Monica Guetre from La Broquerie will run.  She ran for the Liberals in Emerson in the last election (La Broquerie was in Emerson before the redistribution).

Paul Hesse will be the candidate in Fort Rouge. Hesse finished second in 2007 and is probably the Liberal with highest name recognition, other than Gerard and Lamoureux, in the province. They have also nominated Shirley Robert in Radisson.

List of nomination meetings this month

NDP

Feb 7^th – Fort Garry Riverview

Feb 8^th – Charleswood

Feb 17^th – Wosley

Feb 18^th – Swan River

PC

Feb 24^th – Selkirk 

Liberal

Feb 9th - Burrows

P.S. Does anyone have any information as to whether or not the rumours going around about Steeves wanting to jump to Broadway are true?

Updated Nomination Board!

Riding	NDP	PC	Liberal
Agassiz	.	Stu Briese (i)	.
Arthur-Virden	.	Larry Maguire (i)	.
Assiniboia	Jim Rondeau (i)	.	.
Brandon East	.	.	.
Brandon West	.	.	.
Burrows	.	Rick Negrych	Twyla Motkaluk
Charleswood	Paul Beckta	Myrna Driedger (i)	.
Concordia	.	.	.
Dauphin	.	.	.
Dawson Trail	.	.	.
Elmwood	.	.	.
Emerson	.	Cliff Graydon (i)	.
Flin Flon	.	.	.
Fort Garry-Riverview	James Allum	Ian Rabb	.
Fort Richmond	Kerri Irvin-Ross (i)	.	.
Fort Rouge	.	.	Paul Hesse
Fort Whyte	.	Hugh McFadyen (i)	.
Gimli	Peter Bjornson (i)	Jeff Wharton	.
Interlake	.	.	.
Kewatinook	.	.	.
Kildonan	Dave Chomiak (i)	.	.
Kirkfield Park	.	Kelly de Groot	.
La Vérendrye	.	Dennis Smook	Monica Guetre
La du Bonnet	.	.	.
Lakeside	.	Ralph Eichler (i)	.
Logan	Flor Marcelino (i)	.	.
Midland	.	Blaine Pederson (i)	.
Minto	Andrew Swan (i)	.	.
Morden-Winkler	.	.	.
Morris	.	.	.
Point Douglas	.	.	.
Portage la Prairie	.	Ian Wishart	.
Radisson	Bidhu Jha	.	Shirley Robert
Riding Mountain	.	.	.
Riel	Christine Melnick (i)	Rochelle Squires	.
River East	.	Bonnie Mitchelson (i)	.
River Heights	.	Marty Morantz	Jon Gerrard (i)
Rossmere	Erna Braun (i)	.	.
Seine River	Theresa Oswald (i)	.	.
Selkirk	Greg Dewar (i)	.	.
Southdale	Erin Selby (i)	Judy Eastman	.
Spruce Woods	Cory Szczepanski	Cliff Cullen (i)	.
St. Boniface	.	.	.
St. James	.	Scott Gillingham	.
St. Johns	.	.	.
St. Norbert	.	Karen Velthuys	Marcel Laurendeau
St. Paul	.	Ron Schuler (i)	.
St. Vital	Nancy Allan (i)	.	.
Steinbach	.	Kelvin Goertzen (i)	.
Swan River	Rosann Wowchuk (i)	.	.
The Maples	.	Jose Thomas	.
The Pas	.	.	.
Thompson	.	.	.
Transcona	.	.	.
Tuxedo	.	Heather Stefanson (i)	.
Tyndall Park	.	.	Roldan Sevillano Jr
Wolseley	Rob Altemeyer	.	.