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Alberta Election Results

© David Newman

On November 22, Albertans went to the polls to re-elect, big surprise, the Progressive Conservative government of Ralph Klein. It was Klein's fourth majority government, for a party that has ruled the provincial legislature since 1971.

Alberta is strange province, choosing long eras rather than alternating governments. From the begining of its provincehood in 1905, Alberta has seen four parties rule, all done in one go. From 1905 to 1921 it was the Liberals of Alexander Rutherford, Arthur Sifton and Charles Stewart.

From 1921 until 1935, the grassroots movement led by the United Farmers of Alberta, one of the founding movements of the C.C.F., led by Herbert Greenfield, John Edwards Brownlee and Richard Gavin Reid ruled in Edmonton.

Then the Right Wing took over, when William Aberhart's Social Credit movement took power in 1935. The movement lasted until 1971. For over twenty years, Ernest C. Manning, father to Reform Party founded Preston Manning, was Premier of Social Credit before the reign was capped by Harry Strom. Under Peter Lougheed the Tories came to power, and remained strong under Don Getty and Ralph Klein despite a brief scare from the NDP in the eighties.

Ralph Klein won a large majority winning 61 seats out of 83. They however lost many seats as they held 74 seats before the election call. Most of those seats went to the Liberal Party who under Kevin Taft forms the Official Opposition went from seven seats to seventeen. The Alberta New Democrats under Brian Mason went from 2 to 4 seats, all in Edmonton. An Interesting story is about the new Right-wing Alberta Alliance Party which manged to elect its first MP. Its only MP in the house, due to a defection from the Tories, was defeated. They managed t get about 9% of the popular vote.

There are many interesting details of this election:

First of all there was not much of a campaign. The Tories were going to win an everyone knew it from the start. The election was pretty much ignored.

The voter turnout was at a record low 44.5%. That's incredibly low, even for Alberta where, in 2001 the turnout was just over half the eleigble voters.

For the first time, Klein regressed, in terms of electoral success. Each election granted him a better seat total, and this time, his party got less than half the popular vote with 56.8% while it had earned 61.9%. Due to the low turnout and the foregone conclusions, its hard to say whether the low turnout helped or harmed the Tories.

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