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|Monday JUNE 21, 2004 |
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LES JEUX SONT FAITS
There is less than a week of real campaigning
and, at this point, les jeux sont faits. Despite the rhetoric
of the leaders who keep talking about a sweeping majority, unless a
huge mistake by one of them occurs, the only question mark is about
who is going to form the next minority government.
The balance of this campaign is, however, very important for the
leaders, more than it is for their political organizations.
Of course, Prime Minister Paul Martin is the one who can lose
the most. But also his opponents have a lot to be concerned about.
There is no doubt that the Liberals are in big trouble. They have
used all the hot buttons and the most aggressive "negative" campaign
against Tory Leader Stephen Harper and none of it has worked.
I also believe that it was very risky to resort to Brian Mulroney
and Mike Harris to "paint" Mr. Harper in a negative way.
The Mulroney government was punished for three reasons: the
introduction of the GST, the way he handled the Free Trade Agreement
with the Americans, and the accusation of corruption. Basically the
Liberals have "married" all three issues and Canadian citizens start
to look at the past in a different way. Furthermore, after almost 15
years, there are many voters, young people and new immigrants, who
don't even know who Brian Mulroney is. As for Mike Harris,
Ontarians are more concerned, at the present time, with Dalton
McGuinty's government than with Harris'. And the former premier
of Ontario means very little to the voters in the rest of the
country. If anything, he had a good relationship with Québec.
The decision to resort to this negative ad can be justified only in
one case: desperation.
It's too late for the ifs and buts of the past, but you can take a
look at the future.
Unless a catastrophic mistake is made by one of the leaders, or one
of them discovers the cure for a deadly disease, the only question
mark remaining for the balance of the campaign is about who is going
to form the next minority government.
The worst case scenario for all leaders is a weak Liberal minority
government.
With less than 140 seats, Paul Martin will have a difficult time to
holding onto his leadership. It was hard for him to control a caucus
of 172 MPs; it is going to be almost impossible to do it, if there
are less than 140.
Already, there are many names being tossed around of possible
contenders to remove him from the top. They're circling his sinking
ship like sharks. And, there's also the sponsorship scandal still
alive to deal with.
I was always convinced that Mr. Martin reached the top for two
reasons: because of the anger of many MPs against Jean Chrétien's
group, and because of his popularity as minister of Finance. If he
wins a minority government, his popularity will be in tatters and
there won't be many MPs to go to bat for him. It will also be hard
for him to stop MPs from organizing for a leadership race after the
precedents he has established. I've already heard that the next
Liberal leader will be from Québec (Martin Cauchon?).
If Martin has his hands full, then the leader of the opposition,
Stephen Harper, will have some problems on his hands too. If he
will be able to get more than 100 seats, it's going to be hard to
make a case to oust him. However, some might have a different view.
If he's not able to get more popular votes than the one received in
2000 by the Alliance and Conservative parties put together, some
might argue that his "success" is nothing but a mathematical
technicality.
Yes, he was able to reunite the right, but was not able to drive it
to victory. This is true especially if he fails to get seats in
Québec. In fact, it is in this province where the future of
Stephen Harper will be decided: a breakthrough in Ontario
legitimizes you as a leader of a national opposition, but if you
don't have Québec, you will never be able to become Prime Minister.
The presence of the Bloc is very damaging for the Liberals, but it
is also the stumbling block for the united Conservatives too.
Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jack Layton will also be in trouble if
he's not able to get more than 30 seats (including the one in
Toronto-Danforth, of course). If he loses to Dennis Mills, I
assume that there won't be many MPs willing to step aside for him,
unless the new member for Trinity Spadina is Olivia Chow. The
NDP campaign has been influenced more by the actions from other
political organizations than by its own policies. In fact, the New
Democrat Party has been used as a parking place for disgruntled
left-leaning Liberals who are not at peace with Paul Martin's
leadership. Furthermore, they have not been able to stop the
bleeding towards the Green Party. The rise of the Greens has
happened mainly at the expense of the NDP and the collapse of the
"green" vote for the New Democrats seems to be unnoticed only
because the void has been filled with the disgruntled left-wing
Liberal vote.
The only leader who will enjoy some internal honeymoon is Bloc
Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe. His influence on the
political events is minimal. It is like a thermometer: you check to
see if it's warm or cold, but it's not able to change the
temperature of the room. His success means that Québec voters are
upset with the Liberals, if he is in trouble, voters are happy.
With a Liberal minority, we might have the most unstable political
environment in Canada: the three major political organizations might
be in disarray, we might have three new leaders by the end of the
year and, in less than a year we might be back to the polls.
Then there's the possibility of a Conservative minority government.
This would protect Harper's leadership but still we will see
problems, a lot of them, for Paul Martin and Jack Layton. |
