NDP Leader Still Has Party President Sihota’s Support!
VANCOUVER – In his first one-on-one interview since the BC NDP’s crushing defeat in the provincial election, Adrian Dix told CTV news he’s been keeping a low profile while reflecting on where things went wrong.
The party leader was at the helm of one of the most shocking upsets in B.C. political history Tuesday with Christy Clark and the BC Liberals cruising to victory, snapping up 50 out of 85 seats in the Legislature.
The NDP won only 33 seats, three fewer than they entered the election with, despite consistently polling higher than the Liberals in the weeks leading up to the election.
“It’s obviously immensely disappointing, so what I’m doing now is just talking, phoning all of our candidates,” Dix said. “Clearly we’ve got lots of work to do, and I’ll be responding in kind of a formal sense to all of you next week to start that process.”
Asked whether he’d continue as party leader, Dix replied, “I’m still the leader of the NDP. That’s right.”
But for how long after such a debacle that produced even less seats than his predecessor Carole James, who took the party from 3 to 36.
“It’s obviously disappointing; you don’t go into an election campaign for second…We worked very hard, I’m very proud of the team, so I want to talk to them. I want to hear what they have to say.”
Dix at least still has the support of the party’s president to continue on as leader Moe Sihota, who told the Globe and Mail it will do the party no good to have a revolving door on leadership.
Rather, he says the New Democrats as a team will have to look at what happened to leave the party with fewer seats than it had heading into the campaign.
The former NDP cabinet minister blames the election loss on fear-mongering by the B.C. Liberals, complacency by supporters and — to a lesser extent — vote-splitting with the B.C. Green party.
Sihota says the NDP has the money to hold a leadership race but he believes it’s not what the party needs.
