Is it time for a new NDP Leader in Manitoba?

Did any of his cabinet members say that he/she was 100% behind him? Because if they did Greg is done. It just seems to be a rule in politics when someone utters that phrase you are on your way out.

It's time for an NDP in Manitoba.

He should have raised provincial income tax, not consumption tax.  

Keeping income and business tax low to appease the .001% into "doing their part" is waste of time.  They won't EVER do their part unless they're given total "masters of the universe" treatment.

The bad polls are Seliger's fault for governing as a PC premier-for sucking up to the rich on revenue issues and for selling out workers by refusing to pass anti-scab legislation...legislation only right-wing extremists oppose.

The Manitoba NDP is a sinking ship anyways. I suspect that Oswald won't really be able to distinguish herself from Selinger other than "I don't like the PST even though I loyally voted with Selinger on that until the poll numbers got really really bad." There is still anger at her for the way she joined 4 of her colleagues to try and oust Selinger, and should she pull off the impossible and win, that anger will not go away, certainly not in time for 2016.

The leadership review process in the Manitoba NDP is badly broken, and I will reiterate my point upthread that neither Oswald, nor the rest of the Gang of 5, nor Selinger come off looking good in any of this.

On the other hand, I'm sure that some people said that no leader could repair the damage done by Trudeau or Mulroney, and nothing more needs to be said about those long-serving Prime Ministers John Turner and Kim Campbell.

Really, the only thing the Manitoba NDP has going for it right now -- whether they keep Selinger or replace him with Oswald or someone else -- is a very lacklustre opposition.  Which isn't a whole lot to go on, considering that the other guy screwing up is never a sure thing, and it's going to be hard for even the incompetence of the Tories to overcome the unpopularity of the NDP.

Stockholm wrote:

People said that NO new Ontario Liberal leader could repair the damage done by McGuinty. They picked Wynne and she won a majority 

People said that NO new BC Liberal leader could repair the damage done by Gordon Campbell. They picked Clark and she won a majority 

People said that NO new Alberta PCl leader ever could repair the damage done by Alison Redford. They picked Prentice and nothing more need be said... 

Teresa Oswald was part of the government that raised the sales tax and she had no objection to it at the time. I don't see how she can turn things around. IMO, Only an outsider like Bill Blaikee has a shot.

That said, the NDP had climbed back up to around 30% in the polls before the cabinet revolt and they seemed poised to at least challege to hold onto power in the next election.  The cabinet revolt, if not the tiiming of the cabinet revolt, was a bit odd to say the least.

.

Centrist wrote:

 

Only a well-respected, charismatic, and personable politico, not now in the MB NDP gov't, has a chance to go on and win the next election for the MB NDP. Who would that be? I don't know enough about MB politics in order to hazard a guess.

As I mentioned above, Bill Blaikie fits that description.

After 16 years in power, the NDP would be a long shot to win a fifth term no matter what. To me its a question of does the Manitoba NDP stick with Selinger and go on to face a 1987 New Brunswick-style result where Selinger leads the party to ZERO seats - or does the party lose honourably and is a strong enough opposition to be in contention in a subsequent election?

There is no question in my mind that with Selinger the Manitoba NDP will be wiped off the map and may never recover as a force at all. Under Oswalkd they will survive as a party. I have to wonder if Selinger has totally lost his mind now and is completely delusional like some tinpot dictator who refuses to see the writing on the wall. He has GOT TO GO!!!

The Manitoba NDP had a very messy succession in 1986 when the Pawley government collapsed and their support fell to single digits. The NDP picked Gary Doer as leader after the writ dropped - while he lost the election and came in third, the feeling at the time was that Doer had done very well under the circumstances to salvage 12 seats and 24% of the vote and he as we know regained official opposition status in 1990 and then became premier in 1999.

Stockholm wrote:

After 16 years in power, the NDP would be a long shot to win a fifth term no matter what. To me its a question of does the Manitoba NDP stick with Selinger and go on to face a 1987 New Brunswick-style result where Selinger leads the party to ZERO seats - or does the party lose honourably and is a strong enough opposition to be in contention in a subsequent election?

There is no question in my mind that with Selinger the Manitoba NDP will be wiped off the map and may never recover as a force at all. Under Oswalkd they will survive as a party. I have to wonder if Selinger has totally lost his mind now and is completely delusional like some tinpot dictator who refuses to see the writing on the wall. He has GOT TO GO!!!

The Manitoba NDP had a very messy succession in 1986 when the Pawley government collapsed and their support fell to single digits. The NDP picked Gary Doer as leader after the writ dropped - while he lost the election and came in third, the feeling at the time was that Doer had done very well under the circumstances to salvage 12 seats and 24% of the vote and he as we know regained official opposition status in 1990 and then became premier in 1999.

The NDP was starting to do better in Manitoba (30% in the polls) until the revolt.

The distinction is that Oswald is an attractive politician who communicates well and Selinger is a delusional shuck who now has no credibility whatsoever. Oswald can save the furniture while with Selinger staying the Manitoba NDP will get zero seats and will never recover

Stockholm wrote:

The distinction is that Oswald is an attractive politician who communicates well and Selinger is a delusional shuck who now has no credibility whatsoever. Oswald can save the furniture while with Selinger staying the Manitoba NDP will get zero seats and will never recover

1.I believe you mean schmuck, not shuck.  Have to keep up the Yiddish content on Rabble.

2.Selinger is so delusional he was Gary Doer's Finance Minister for 10 years and then won an election as Premier.

3.Like I said above, the NDP was slowly improving in the polls prior to the revolt.  He's probably finished now, but given that Oswald had no problem sticking with Selinger until, not because she had problems with his leadership or his policies, but  solely because she determined he couldn't win the next election.  

The unpopularity of the provincial NDP is harming the prospects of the federal NDP.

The Liberals may end up winning more seats in Manitoba than the NDP in 2015.

I can't imagine Mulcair is happy with the Selinger situation.

I don't think it's all that surprising -- he seemed to me to be playing a little coy in the media.  But perhaps his entry into the race will inject a little more substance instead of the debate just being "Selinger can't win" versus "Traitors!!!"  I recall last time, he was the only candidate who was proposing some policy changes -- things like bringing back the tuition freeze and implementing anti-scab legislation (whereas Selinger promised to "only" increase tuition by 5% per year and did so up until the government came up with the highly flawed Bill 2) -- which are things that progressives can really get behind and which the NDP has abandoned over the years.

It's hard to predict how exactly things will shake up.  It seems like a lot of the big movers and shakers have probably already chosen sides, but he didn't need all that much support from them last time to score almost 40%.  Maybe it's possible that he will pick up support from those who have lost faith in Selinger but don't like the Gang of Five, but I suspect that there is a ceiling there and that a lot of people have already been polarized one way or the other.  Also, the actual process will matter a lot as well, as it did last time in how there were a lot of decisions made about the process that didn't go his way (the motives of which I'll leave to the reader's speculation).

The race definitely got a little more interesting today, that's for sure.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Of course, none of this would have happened if Manitoba NDP members had the option to vote yes/no for a leadership review, as is the case in almost every other party. 

Actually I don't think any party in Canada allows all card carrying members to vote Yes or No on leadership reviews. Those votes always happen at party conventions and only delegates vote. You may be confusing it with the phenomenon of parties having a OMOV process to pick a new leader.

Stockholm:

I think you may have more accurately communicated what I meant than I did. At the Manitoba NDP, every convention, someone has to specifically challenge the leader for a review. Federally, we are all given a piece of paper and asked if we want a leadership review. That's what I was referring to. That is distinct from members choosing their leader using OMOV. Both are changes the Manitoba NDP needs to make.

Genstrike:

I appreciate your point about knowing how the delegates plan to vote so that the party members can vote accordingly at the selection meetings. It gets really tricky when people refuse to disclose who they support. I'm sure you and I both agree that OMOV is a much better way to choose.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

I appreciate your point about knowing how the delegates plan to vote so that the party members can vote accordingly at the selection meetings. It gets really tricky when people refuse to disclose who they support. I'm sure you and I both agree that OMOV is a much better way to choose.

Of course, but the problem with OMOV is that it erodes the powers of the powers that be.  No hand-picked labour delegates, no votes from ex-officio superdelegates, no possibility of bureaucratic wrangling to make sure the right people make it to the polls (and the wrong people don't), and no ways to play around with the process to influence the delegate count either way.  Letting the rank and file membership decide these sort of things themselves would present an unacceptable risk to the brass.  They'd have too much democracy on their hands.

The deadline for new memberships has passed. Hopefully the party now moves on to replace the Premier.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/multimedia/who-does-your-mla-supp...

Selinger has only 10 MLAs backing him, not too impressive for an incumbent premier. 

Oswald has 7 and Ashton 6.

8 are undecided and 2 are remaining neutral.

Malloway is certainly a pretty embarrassing member.  He lost Elmwood-Transcona to the Conservatives in the 2011 Federal election, then felt entitled to run for Blaikie's provincial seat a few months after that, got elected provincially, and then had the gall to run again for the Federal nomination in Elmwood-Transcona a few months ago.  It's non-stop musical chairs for Malloway.  I'm not surprised the Federal membership got fed up and decided to pick Daniel Blaikie as the new nominee for 2015 instead.

janfromthebruce wrote:

It was too bad that the Liberals supporters didn't stand aside and give their vote to Malloway and ensure a con didn't win that seat. He only lost by -0.28% of the vote and that Liberal took about 5 percent. In fact, it looks like, again, those "blue liberals" voters gave enough votes to the Con for the win since the Liberal vote was reduced by about 1.6 percent. Looking at the previous election in 2008, Liberal vote went down by about 5percent and again the Con vote went up, showing again the blue liberal voters are not progressive and prefer the cons.

No matter. The point is, Malloway lost the election, and something he did resulted in a failure to win more votes than the Conservatives. The NDP is no more entitled to votes or seats than anyone else, and they took for granted that Elmwood-Transcona would stay NDP, despite the scare that that lightweight Thomas Steen gave them in 2008. Which leads me to:

janfromthebruce wrote:

Of course, riding associations make their decisions who they choose. Obviously when Malloway won the provincial nomination it was about those members making a choice and not about entitlement.

If that's the case, then you could say the same thing about any candidate of any party who wins a nomination. I'll also point out that except for losing what should have been a safe NDP seat, Malloway has failed to distinguish himself in public life at all, and he only won his riding because a ham sandwich running under the NDP banner would clean up in that part of the city very easily.

Constituencies have started sending their delegates. [url=http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/selingers-challengers-scor... and Oswald are far ahead of Selinger thus far.[/url]