Stelmach Has Chance to Win Alberta Leadership Race

Ed Stelmach finished third in the first round of voting in the Alberta Provincial Progressive Conservative leadership race on the weekend of November 25-26.

The 55-year-old farmer and former senior minister in Ralph Klein’s cabinet, who garnered 15 per cent of the vote (behind former provincial treasurer and Calgary energy executive Jim Dinning’s 30 per cent and American-born political science professor Ted Morton’s 26 per cent), is seen as a compromise candidate who melds the views of the two front-runners.

The solid showing of Morton, a social conservative who is for privatized health care, has worried moderate party members, while Dinning has been criticized by some for being too tied to the party elite.

If nobody wins a majority in the second round of voting on December 2, the third-place candidate will be dropped off the ballot. His votes will then be transferred, in order of preference, to the remaining two candidates. In this scenario, it is predicted that Stelmach will have a good chance of becoming Alberta’s 13th premier.

The Alberta-born Stelmach has been nicknamed Steady Eddie for his unflappable and low-key leadership style.  Stelmach, who has Ukrainian roots, was raised on his family’s homestead east of Edmonton.

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Ed Stelmach