On Saturday, for 2019 elections, the Canada’s official opposition Conservatives had chosen 38-year-old Andrew Scheer, to fight against Justin Trudeau, a Liberal prime minister, but only after the fierce contest which revealed the internal divisions.
On final round of the ballot, many political observers have predicted that, the speaker of former House of Commons Andrew Scheer has edged out the ex-foreign minister and also favourite Maxime Bernier by 51% to 49%.
Scheer is lot younger and also not as much reputed as the 45-year-old Trudeau. Scheer an avowed feminist, promising the more inclusive kind of politics, took the power in the November 2015. Polls show that the Liberals are still well ahead of the opposition parties.
At present, Scheer must attempt to heal the rift between socially conservative wing which he represents and also others who prefer a more centrist approach.
“We all know what it looks like when conservatives are divided. We will not let that happen again,” Scheer told at a televised news conference after the announcement of final results in a Toronto convention centre.
“Imagine what we will do when we are all working together. We can’t go through another four years of Justin Trudeau.”
The formidable race had the Trump-like populism moments, with a reality TV star and also a candidate critical of immigration getting an early attention. But Scheer and also Bernier were more the mainstream politicians, suggesting the wave of populism which swept Donald Trump to the US presidency will not extend to Canada.
under the leadership of former prime minister Stephen Harper, the right-of-centre Conservatives have held the power for nearly a decade, before the centre-left Liberals won the power in the year 2015.
cheer, who likes Harper is based in the western Canada, he attacked Trudeau for running up the large budget deficits and also accused him of being soft on what he called as “radical Islamic terrorism”.
Although Scheer said that he will not reopen contentious debates on the issues like abortion, that is legal in Canada, the Liberals quickly accused Scheer of harbouring an extreme and also the divisive agenda.
“The challenge will be to attack Justin Trudeau’s weaknesses, but also to bring Conservatives who have left the party back into the fold,” said the Queen’s University political science professor, Jonathan Rose.
The fierce race was determined by calculating the support from delegates and also Conservative associations in all of the Canada’s 338 parliamentary constituencies.
The results showed that Scheer was polled better than expected in the Quebec area, a predominantly French-speaking province, that holds 78 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons and is also vital to any party’s prospects.
Among the challengers, none of them has the high profile as like Trudeau, whose approval ratings remained higher than any other opponent on the left or right, despite of the rising dissatisfaction with the economy and also a series of spending and the entitlement controversies.
According to the Nanos Research poll, Trudeau is the preferred choice as a prime minister for 46% of Canadians.
“For Conservatives it is really all about the economy. If the Conservative party doesn’t have a strong lead over the Liberals on the question of which party has the best economic plan, it will struggle,” said Darrell Bricker, a pollster with Ipsos Public Affairs.
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Mrudula Duddempudi.
