Canadian Prime Minister Wins Third Term

Voters returned Prime Minister Jean Chretien to a historic third term Monday as leader of a majority government in Canada’s national election.

The question for voters was never really whether Chretien would stay in office. Rather, it was how easy they would make it for him.

Unofficial returns Monday night showed that Chretien’s Liberal Party had increased its number of seats in Parliament from 161 to 171, quelling fears that it would lose control of Parliament and its ability to pass legislation.

Chretien was visibly tired but triumphant after defying predictions that his Liberals would have difficulty holding on to their power under his leadership.

“The people of Canada have shown their confidence in our team, in our program and in my leadership,” he said in a nationally televised victory speech at midnight.

Helped by a strong economy and a large budget surplus, the Liberal leader who has headed the country for seven years won a place in history as the first Canadian prime minister since World War II to lead three consecutive majority governments. He also will become the longest-serving leader among the industrial powers after President Clinton steps down in January.

But Chretien’s longevity also has led to voter exhaustion. The 66-year-old prime minister has been accused of arrogance, corruption and overstaying his welcome. But his experience paid off.

The flinty, no-nonsense politician campaigned until the last minute Monday to persuade Canada’s approximately 20 million voters to stick with the Liberals. Failure to win a majority in the 301-seat House of Commons would have forced him to form an alliance with smaller parties to pass legislation and possibly turn over leadership of the party to his more popular finance minister, Paul Martin.

Chretien ended a five-week campaign Monday morning by marking an “X” next to his name on a paper ballot and slipping it into a white ballot box with a sigh of relief. “It’s easier than in the United States,” he joked as he voted in his working-class hometown of Shawinigan, Quebec.

A Canadian premier can call an election any time before a full five-year term expires. Chretien decided in October--against the advice of his own party--to hold a vote, largely to head off the rise of rivals within the Liberal Party and a charismatic, conservative challenger outside the party, Stockwell Day.

Day’s party, the Canadian Alliance, formed in March to unite Canada’s fragmented conservatives into a bloc capable of challenging the Liberals. Offering an alternative of lower taxes, smaller government, and a fresh face to lead the country, it gained deep support in the western provinces.

But caught off guard by the sudden election call, the Alliance wasn’t able to pull together its platform, and Day himself became an issue in the campaign. The telegenic 50-year-old candidate sought to create a youthful, energetic image by campaigning on in-line skates, riding a self-propelled water ski and performing karate.

But voters dwelt on his right-wing politics and his evangelical Christian beliefs, and Chretien portrayed him as an extremist who would reverse course on issues that the liberal-leaning country holds dear: national health care, gun control and abortion rights.

While Day tried to keep his religious and personal beliefs out of the campaign, leaked position papers and gaffes by party candidates brought flocks of protesters to his campaign stops, chanting, “Sexist, racist, anti-gay; go away, Stockwell Day.”

Nevertheless, the Canadian Alliance is expected to be the main opposition party in Parliament--it gained nine seats, bringing its total to 67. Stockwell Day graciously conceded to Chretien but emphasized that his party had won seats in every region and should be recognized as a serious opponent.

“We are the federal alternative for those who would choose another form of government,” Day said Monday night.

After a particularly nasty and personal campaign, Alliance members warned that the Liberals will reap the hatred they had sown during the 36-day race.

“They tried to get people to hate us, not disagree with our policies,” said Chuck Strahl, the incumbent House leader for the Alliance. “In Canada, I never thought I would see that.”

Canada’s three other main parties battled to win protest votes against the Liberals and the Alliance, but each ended up losing seats. The three are the Bloc Quebecois, a Quebec separatist party, which for the first time since 1980 received fewer seats than the Liberals in the province; the leftist New Democratic Party; and the Progressive Conservatives, which won exactly the minimum 12 seats needed to maintain official party status. One man in Nova Scotia registered his own protest: He grabbed the ballot box out of a polling station and dumped it in a local harbor, sinking 126 votes in the process.

Otherwise, the election ran relatively smoothly compared with the American race. Voters hand-marked their ballots, which were then counted manually. Just four minutes after the polls closed across the country, television stations--accurately--called the elections for the Liberals.

Throughout the evening, newscasts kept breaking into election coverage with details from the disputed American presidential race.