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Monday Feb. 20 2006 |
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LIBERALS HAVE ABANDONED THE 'RADICAL CENTRE'
by Angelo Persichilli
THE HILL TIMES
The Ontario NDP
wing’s “suspension” of powerful Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz
Hargrove has raised many concerns among rank-and-file New Democrats.
Whether the party is right or wrong, the outcome is not going to be nice.
Mr. Hargrove’s obsession about defeating the Conservative Party through
so-called strategic voting has basically reduced the NDP to a spare tire in
the Liberal Party. He’s right that an understanding between the Liberal and
the NDP voters can stop Conservative candidates in many ridings, but his
approach created a situation that only the Liberal candidates could benefit
from. Liberals have never said that they would vote for the NDP candidate
where they had no chance of winning.
However, despite Mr. Hargrove’s blunder, which left his party with the short
end of the stick, it doesn’t kill the issue of uniting the Canadian
center-left vote. In fact, I believe that Canada is heading straight towards
a two-party system.
Considering that the Bloc Québécois is still a temporary political nuisance,
one of the three national parties might be soon history.
Which one? I believe it’s either going to be the Liberal Party or the NDP.
The reason? A strategic mistake made by Paul Martin and his “The Board.”
When they realized that their government was in trouble, instead of focusing
on their record and platform, they tried to draw a huge line between
themselves and the Conservatives. Their intention was to push the
Conservatives to the far right, but Mr. Harper did not fall into the trap.
Instead, he moved his party towards the centre occupying traditional Liberal
territory.
Stephen Harper also got some extra help from Paul Martin who moved further
and further to the left in order to keep an “ideological distance” between
himself and Mr. Harper.
It leaves us with a Conservative Party that potentially appeals to the vast
majority of the moderate voters in the middle class, while the Liberals are
fighting with the NDP to get the center-left vote. This part of the
electorate, bleeding also because of the surging strength of the Green
Party, is definitely not big enough to support a party that wants to form
the government. I believe that the only winning strategy is to have one
party representing the centre-left electorate.
Things can only change if the next Liberal leader moves the party back
towards the right to reclaim the territory that Paul Martin has conceded to
Stephen Harper. |
