Tory leadership still a one-horse race with deadline just hours away
Posted Aug 16, 2010 06:03:29 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The October convention of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party will be an acclamation unless an unexpected candidate comes forward – but at least one political observer says he’s not holding his breath.
Cape Breton University political scientist Tom Urbaniak says it’s almost certain Jamie Baillie will be the party’s leader when Monday’s deadline arrives.
And he says the one-man nomination might have been a bad thing.
“The Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia arguably would have benefited from a real leadership race,” he said. “[It would have provided] an exchange of ideas and an opportunity to recruit new members to the party.”
He says a steady stream of the party’s heavy hitters came forward to say they wouldn’t be running including the current interim leader of the party.
“Karen Casey may well have been a candidate had it not been for the MLA spending scandal and some of the difficulty that caused for her,” he said.
He says as the big guns in the party stepped out of the ring things quickly congealed around Baillie.
Urbaniak says the first thing on Baillie’s to-do list should be getting a seat in the house.
Nominations for the leadership close at 5 p.m. today.
