With Alberta’s next election in about a year, the United Conservative Party needs a new leader who can beat Rachel Notley’s NDP if it is to retain power after Jason Kenney’s reign.
Kenney resigned May 18 after receiving 51.4 percent support from UCP members in a leadership review, saying it wasn’t a strong enough mandate despite being higher than the constitutional threshold of a majority. He will remain party leader until a replacement is chosen in the sequel to his tumultuous era.
Marco Navarro-Genie, president of the Calgary-based Haultain Research Institute, says Kenney entered the premiership with an enthusiasm unmatched since that received by Progressive Conservative Peter Lougheed in 1971. Then “so many things went wrong.”…