TORONTO – Jason Kenney (in the pic) throws in the towel. Alberta’s premier and leader of the United Conservative Party has decided to resign as head of the party after the vote on the review of his leadership split the Canadian right, worn out by months of internal feuds, accusations, poisons and controversy until the dramatic epilogue on Wednesday evening.
A final, however, completely unexpected: 51.4 percent of the members had voted in favor of the leader, a quota considered sufficient by the internal regulations of the UCP for the confirmation of Kenney. The prime minister himself before the vote had made it known that he would remain in his post even if he received 50 percent plus one of the votes of the members. Instead, having collected the niet from almost half of the conservative electoral base, Kenney decided to take a step back.
“The result – he said – is not what I hoped for or even what I frankly expected. If 51 percent of the vote passes as the minimum basis for the majority, it clearly does not represent adequate support to continue as a leader. In all, out of 34,298 party members who voted by the May 11 deadline, 17,638 supported Kenney and 16,660 rejected him.
Now the race for succession opens. Brian Jean and Danielle Smith have already confirmed their intention to submit the application. Contacted by the Corriere Canadese, the former leader of the Wildrose Party looks confidently to the immediate future. “I hope – said Jean – that the departure of Jason Kenney will make it possible for the conservative movement of Alberta to start the process of mending and rebuilding”.
In recent months Jean has been kenney’s main opponent, becoming the de facto spokesman for all the creeping malaise towards the premier. A precise sign of how the wind was changing had already been felt in the provincial elections at Fort McMurray, won by Jean himself, whose program could be summarized in one point: “A vote for me is a vote against Jason Kenney”.
Thus the Kenney era in the right of Alberta ends earlier than expected. His had been a sudden rise that had changed the political balance of the province. After a long political career at the federal level, with prestigious roles in the executive led by Stephen Harper, Kenney had decided to direct his career at the provincial level. Elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta in 2017, Kenney immediately implemented his plan to reunify the various sections of the provincial right. In the summer of the same year, the union with the Wildrose Party was completed in the newly formed political formation of the United Conservative Party: in the leadership race Kenney prevailed over Jean himself, becoming leader of the party, head of the official opposition in the legislative assembly and, with the provincial elections of 2018, premier of Alberta.
But the decline of Harper’s former right-hand man began just as he came to power. Criticized by the right – because it is considered too moderate by the standards of the provincial conservatives – and by the left, the peak of unpopularity reached him last summer, when in the middle of the pandemic he decided to completely reopen the province starting from July.
A move that led to the boom in Covid-19 infections, with the record of hospitalizations in intensive care and deaths, proportionally many higher than those recorded in Ontario and Quebec. The suffering of the base, which had previously led to some murmuring and nothing more, over the months became an open rebellion, fueled by Jean and other provincial politicians, dissatisfied with the leadership of their leader.
Now, once the settlement of accounts is over, the party is ready to turn the page. Among the potential candidates for leadership, in addition to Jean and Smith, there are also Rona Ambrose, former interim leader of the Federal Conservative Party.