Liberals of Prime Minister Mark Carney narrowly win Canadian elections

The ruling liberal party of Prime Minister Mark Carney achieved a narrow victory in the Canadian parliamentary elections on Monday. The party may rule from Canadian voters with a fourth consecutive mandate, but may not get a majority in the Lower House in Ottawa.

With the victory, Canadian voters trust 60-year-old Carney, a former president of the Canadian Central Bank and of the British Central Bank, the task of defending the country against US President Donald Trump. Trump has unleashed a trade war with the northern neighbors, and regularly says that he wants to incorporate Canada as a ’51st state’, to the anger of many Canadians.

However, the victory was tighter than the past weeks were expected; The conservative party of opposition leader Pierre Poilievre came out as a strong second. The race turned out to be a polarizing battle for power between the two main parties: together they received more than 80 percent of the votes; Support for smaller parties shone considerably.

Substantial loss of smaller parties

Counted with approximately 75 percent of the votes, the liberals stood at 6 am Dutch time on a projected 161 seats in the 343 seat parliament, a slight profit compared to the 160 seats they won in the previous elections in 2021. 172 seats are needed for a majority. The conservative party was at 150 seats, a profit of approximately 30 seats. The social-democratic NDP, a smaller opposition party, was on 8 seats, a considerable loss. The greens retain one seat.

In the predominantly French -speaking province of Quebec Boette the separatist Bloc Québécois in support: the party, which only participates in the 78 Quebec constituencies, was also a major loss at 6 am Dutch time on 23 seats. The loss of seats of the Bloc Québécois and the NDP is due to a wish of their voters to avert a victory of the conservatives; Some of their voters were transferred to the Liberals of Carney for that purpose.

The victory of the liberals is nevertheless a sensational turning in Canadian politics since the beginning of this year, when they were in danger of being wiped out according to opinion polls. The popularity of Carney’s predecessor, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was in power after nine years. Many voters found that after the pandemic, his government reacted too slowly to the inflation crisis and housing shortage and craved change.

Landslide

Poilievre, a 45-year-old populist, since he had a hard-to-hard campaign against Trudeau and promised Canadian voters in 2023. Successfully: in a year and a half he built a lead in the polls that increased to 20 to 25 percentage points. A sample victory for the conservatives seemed almost certain for months, except for an unexpected landslide.

Then that landslide occurred. The return from Trump to the White House and the departure of Trudeau, who announced his resignation at the beginning of January after increasing pressure from his own party, Poilievre took the wind out of his sails. Deployment of the elections was no longer primarily Trudeau’s policy, as Poilievre wanted, but the question of who had the best papers to defend Canada against the whims of Trump.

Many voters doubted Poilievre in that area. Not only, as a career politician who has been in parliament since he was 24, he has hardly any experience outside of Canadian politics, but he also reminds many Canadians, both ideologically and in style, of Trump. At the beginning of 2022, for example, Poilievre supported the controversial ‘Freedom Convoy’ of truck drivers against Trudeau’s corona policy. That protest, which was supported by Trump supporters in the US and beyond, led to a week-long blockage of the capital Ottawa.

Adult

Voters see Carney, who helped Canada as president of the Canadian central bank through the financial crisis and as head of the British central bank the UK through the Brexit, as the candidate who can take on Trump as prime minister. He was often described as « the adult in the room. »

The fact that Carney is now getting his own mandate is a considerable boost for him, but it will have to be clear how he can rule with a tight mandate where the conservatives are on him. If he does not receive a majority, he must seek support in parliament at opposition parties.

For Canadian Conservatives, their defeat is a bitter pill: Poilievre saw a healing monster victory pass by. Yet he dragged a strong result, and it is expected that he will therefore be able to stay as an opposition leader. He is popular under his own supporters.

To share

Mail the editors