This week on Days of our PC Lives: leaked information, cabinet ministers under attack, infighting, scandal, corruption – tune in next time to find out what happens next as our political world turns.
The leadership for the Progressive Conservative party has become a soap opera in recent weeks, with one eyebrow-raising story after another. From candidate Jim Prentice’s campaign giving away free memberships, to an anonymous person leaking details of Thomas Lukaszuk’s $20,000 cellphone bill, to Ric McIver’s last ditch attack ads against presumed frontrunner Prentice, these have not been smooth, yawn-stifling campaigns.
The leadership race has also exposed some of the fracture lines within the PC party. For instance, a sitting MLA and a political staffer both have alleged that cabinet minister Manmeet Bhullar, a supporter of Prentice, encouraged them to dig up dirt on Lukaszuk, a charge which he denies but which still has left the impression of a party at war within itself.
Ugly political battles and personal attacks may give one candidate an edge over their rivals, but at what cost? The public sees scandal and just becomes soured on the whole political process and ends up viewing all politicians as a group of corrupt fat cats.
So far, Prentice is the only leadership contender to have made a stop in St. Paul, and so far, he has managed to maintain his lead over his rivals, partly through his positioning of himself as a government outsider, riding in like a white knight to clean up the rot in the PC government.
But whoever wins the nomination has a difficult battle ahead of him in terms of uniting the PCs and restoring the voters’ battered trust in the long-governing party. It’s a tall order, and if he is successful, it will be quite the achievement. If he is not, the Wildrose are ready and waiting, armed with a laundry list of scandals to give this party a fatal wound in the next election and start the next saga in the province’s political soap opera.
