Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin's gamble in calling an early election has yet to show signs of paying off, with questions being raised over whether he will lose his parliamentary majority or even lose office after six months in power.
Martin's Liberals made no major gaffes in the first week of campaigning for the June 28 vote, but the 65-year-old leader has also failed to catch fire.
In calling the election last Sunday, a year and a half before he had to, the gamble was that he could raise his support during the campaign to the point where he could salvage a majority government -- but his polling numbers have gone the wrong direction.
"In the four weeks remaining before June 28, Martin must reconnect with fickle, angry voters, illuminate a vision for Canada's future that has lost its focus, and, most important, dispel rising doubts about his leadership," columnist Jim Travers wrote in the pro-Liberal Toronto Star.
"Martin, who just months ago, was expected to sweep the country, might now become opposition leader and, in time, little more than a political curiosity," Travers wrote.
Martin had gained respect as finance minister from 1993 to 2002, when he delivered balanced budgets first and then tax cuts. He had an aura of invincibility and superstar popularity as he ousted his political rival, Jean Chretien, as prime minister in December.
He remains ahead of the Conservatives by a lead of 38 percent to 30 percent in the latest poll, but this is a far cry from leads of 30 points to which the Liberals had become accustomed. It would also mean losing a majority in Parliament.
The Conservatives, who are pushing for more tax cuts while Martin now says Canada cannot afford them, could even deny him even a minority government if the current trends continue, Ekos pollster Frank Graves predicted on Friday.
If he becomes a "political curiosity" as a short-term prime minister, Martin would join the ranks of Conservatives Kim Campbell, in office for just five months in 1993, and Joe Clark, who served nine months from 1979-80, and Liberal John Turner, who lasted just three months in 1984.
"I don't think [Martin is] seen as change anymore," the Star quoted Graves as saying as it released an Ekos poll showing 59 percent of Canadians think it's time to change parties.
Voters had certainly tired of Chretien after they gave him three successive majorities. Martin had to try to present a new face despite being elected under Chretien and serving in his cabinet.
The two biggest reasons for the decline in the polls are a spending scandal which saw government ad money being channeled to Liberal firms, sometimes for no work, and a broken-promise tax hike by Ontario's provincial Liberals.
Martin's strategists put a brave face on the numbers -- "It's only the first week," one said -- and said they saw encouraging signs especially toward the end of the week.
A sleeper issue in this campaign is gay marriage, which the Liberals want to legalize but most Conservatives oppose.
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS