WINNIPEG — The resignation of popular NDP MLA Kevin Chief underscores a big problem the party is grappling with, according to a political expert.
Chief was once thought of as a possible successor to former leader Greg Selinger but in September he said he wouldn’t be running for the position.
READ MORE: Manitoba NDP collapse after nearly 17 years in power, Greg Selinger resigns as leader
His resignation permanently snuffs out that possibility, leaving the party with one less option on an already very short list of candidates.
“In some sense they’re left with a big empty hole in their midst and how to fill it is really the problem,” said Allen Mills, a political science professor at the University of Winnipeg.
READ MORE: Former Manitoba cabinet minister, Kevin Chief, quits politics
The leadership options from within the party were thinned out after five cabinet ministers publicly called on Selinger to resign in 2014.
It caused a divisive leadership battle in which Selinger barely prevailed.
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Those five veteran cabinet ministers resigned their posts and two, Theresa Oswald and Jennifer Howard, left the party.
“They’ve lost the next generation of leaders and so now we’re into people in their 20’s and 30’s as people that are thought of as the next leaders,” said Mills.
Recruiting a party outsider to run for leader may not be an easy proposition for the NDP who could be looking at a lengthy rebuild.
Since the late 1950’s every winning party has won at least two elections in a row except for the Sterling Lyon Conservatives in the late 1970’s.