Wednesday October 15, 2008

Canada's Conservatives win re-election -TV

By Randall Palmer and David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the first Western leader to contest an election since the financial meltdown, won a second minority government mandate on Tuesday, two television networks projected.

Signs for Conservative leader and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper are pictured at his election night headquarters in Calgary, October 14, 2008. Harper, the first Western leader to contest an election since the financial meltdown, won a second minority government mandate on Tuesday, two television networks projected. (REUTERS/Chris Wattie)

The Conservatives convinced voters they were the best choice to steer Canada through the economic turmoil, but projections by Global Television and CTV put them short of winning a majority. That means they would still need opposition party support to govern.

The official opposition Liberals, who have historically governed Canada for longer than any other party, trailed far behind in second place and looked set for their worst showing in at least 20 years.

The result would be Canada's third minority government in four years. Harper's Conservatives defeated a Liberal minority government in the January 2006 election.

"I'm very delighted we've been given a second mandate," Conservative senator and campaign co-chair Marjory Lebreton told CTV. "I'm very optimistic about what's going to happen the rest of the night."

The Conservative leader ran on a modest platform of keeping taxes and spending under control, while the Liberals proposed introducing a carbon tax while cutting income taxes and boosting social spending. Harper said the Liberal plan would throw Canada into recession.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion, a bookish francophone who sometimes makes mistakes in English, found it difficult at a time of relatively high energy prices to sell his carbon tax plan.

"It's a hard sell," Liberal strategist David Smith conceded to CTV.

Dion started to cut into Harper's lead during the campaign as he charged the prime minister, a former economist who is also fairly wooden, was not doing enough to prevent financial contagion from spreading into Canada.

But the Conservative lead over the Liberals widened again in parallel with specific action taken to improve Canadian bank liquidity. Harper had the added benefit that markets and the Canadian dollar rebounded on Election Day.

SPLIT ON THE LEFT

One of Dion's problems was that he was competing with two other parties on the left nationally -- the New Democrats and the Greens -- and a fourth party, the separatist Bloc Quebecois in the province of Quebec.

Each party made the pitch it was the best one to deny Harper a second term. Just as a split on the right guaranteed Liberal rule from 1993 to 2006, a split on the left now helped the Conservatives.

A Conservative majority looked within reach at times during the campaign, but besides questions on the economy, Harper lost major support in Quebec over cuts to arts funding and plans to give adult sentences to violent youth criminals.

The careers of both Harper and Dion were on the line. Dion was elected Liberal leader in 2006 and if he does indeed lose, his party will automatically under its own rules have to decide whether to replace him.

The Liberals' Smith questioned what the point was of having an election when the result appeared to be another minority government.

Harper had said earlier that even if he only got a second minority, he would be in a stronger position than he had been 2 1/2 years into the minority mandate he won in the 2006 election since opposition parties would be less likely to topple him for now.

(Additional reporting by Louise Egan)

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