MEDICINE HAT, AB — To the surprise of many Albertans, the UCP and the NDP were the only parties to win seats in Tuesday night’s election.
According to local political science instructor Jim Groom, that could create issues in the legislature.
The UCP has won 63 seats, while the NDP has 24.
The Alberta Party’s two incumbents sought reelection, but lost in their respective ridings, while the Alberta Liberal Party lost their one seat.
Groom says this could be polarizing for Alberta, creating more of a divide between NDP and UCP majority areas.
“So here you have the UCP, they represent geographically probably 70, 80 per cent of the province and then we have the island that is Edmonton, and their interests are going to be different from the rest of the province in some respects,” says Groom. “It’s going to be really difficult for them to deal with that conflict because you still have to serve the people who didn’t vote for you as well.”
He adds it might be tough to communicate in the legislature with no party diversity.
“The more diversity you have in the legislature and in your political opposition I think the better,” says Groom. “Otherwise you end up with two isolated groups and they both have their own agenda, and the other agendas sort of get washed away a little bit.”
When it comes to the Alberta Party, he does believe they can come back from this, considering they had roughly 10 percent of the provincial vote.
“The Alberta party may be able to survive again, of course Mandell lost his seat and he decided to resign, we’ll see if someone picks that up,” says Groom. “It can make a huge difference as to who the leader is and what kind of interest they get. I’m sure its got a future, it had pretty good fundraising, but it’s hard to do without someone in the legislature because you don’t have that public image.”
However, Groom believes the path back to success will be more difficult for the Alberta Liberal Party.
“The Liberal Party is pretty much toast at this point,” says Groom. “At one point they were the main opposition in the province.”
