STEPHENVILLE, N.L. – It was a bittersweet night for Liberal Leader Kevin Aylward, holding onto official Opposition status, but failing to win his own seat.
When Aylward gave his election night speech to supporters in Stephenville, the Liberals were tied with the NDP at five seats, but following the speech St. Barbe Liberal Jim Bennett eked out a narrow victory over incumbent Wallace Young.
Aylward said Tuesday night’s result was as good as could be expected, after he took over the Liberal leadership less than two months ago.
“We’ve increased our seats in the House, even our popular vote is reaching up to a figure that people weren’t predicting,” Aylward said. “This party now is repositioning in the House of Assembly as the Opposition.”
Speaking to reporters following his speech, Aylward would not say whether he will stay on as leader of the party.
At the same time, he acknowledged that the leader’s place is in the House of Assembly.
“You want to be in the House of Assembly, so that’s what you run for,” Aylward said. “If you want to be leader of the party, that’s where you want to end up to.”
Whether he’ll ask one of the six Liberal MHAs who won seats Tuesday night to step down, so he can run in their place, Aylward wasn’t saying.
“Not even going to think about any of that at this point, we’re just going to take the night as it is and look at where we are now,” he said. “We’ll start tomorrow morning being the official Opposition.”
The Liberals strongest base of support is clearly now in western Newfoundland where they won four seats, along with Labrador where they won another two.
The party managed to take four seats away from PC candidates – including incumbent cabinet minister Patty Pottle in the district of Torngat Mountains.
At the same time, the NDP managed to upset incumbent Liberal Marshall Dean on the Northern Peninsula, a loss which clearly surprised many party members.
This has been a hard-fought campaign for the Liberals, with polls putting the party in third place behind the Tories and NDP.
Ultimately, the Liberals did get the smallest share of the votes, but thanks to strong pockets of support on the west coast, they managed to maintain one more seat than the NDP.
On the issues, Aylward campaigned heavily on problems affecting rural Newfoundland and continuing struggles within the fishery.
But most of all, he tried to position the campaign as a referendum on the deal to develop the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project.
With PC Leader Kathy Dunderdale winning a strong majority, Aylward conceded that she may have won a mandate on the issue.
“What it is, is a mandate for them to pursue it,” he said. “But we’re going to be the official Opposition, and we’re going to do everything we can to ensure that the deal as it is today doesn’t go ahead.”
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