EDMONTON – According to unofficial numbers, former police officer Moe Banga won the Ward 12 byelection Monday night and will become Edmonton’s newest city councillor.
“Who’s the real winner?” Banga asked his supporters as they chanted ‘Moe!’during his victory speech. “You guys are!”
“I will be a councillor that you will be proud of,” Banga told his boisterous crowd of supporters.
According to his website, Banga has lived in the ward for 35 years and spent 24 years as a police officer, mostly serving in the Mill Woods area.
Unofficial numbers posted to the City of Edmonton’s byelection page suggest Banga won handily despite a long list of of candidates, earning 2,359 votes. The page shows Edmonton Catholic Schools trustee Laura Thibert as finishing second with 1,283 votes and Arundeep Singh Sandhu finishing in third with 1,106 votes.
The Ward 12 council seat was vacated by Amarjeet Sohi who was elected as a federal MP for Edmonton Mill Woods in October and now serves as infrastructure minister for the Liberal government.
There were 32 candidates running to replace Sohi in the southeast Edmonton ward. That’s more than 10 times the candidates in the 2013 general election, when there were three names on the ballot.
“Every little bit helps, whether it’s your job or your behaviour in the community or your little sacrifices that you make day in and day out,” Banga said when asked if his experience as a police officer helped him get elected. “They get noticed.”
Banga said his priorities will be transparency, keeping his constituents safe from crime and paying attention to infrastructure issues.
READ MORE: Who’s running in Edmonton’s crowded Ward 12 byelection?
On Monday night, unofficial results showed 13, 279 people voted in the 2016 Ward 12 bylection which is a voter turnout of a little more than 21.6 per cent.
In the 2013 election, voter turnout in the ward was 32 per cent.
Banga will be on council for less than two years, as the next civic election is in October 2017.