BC Liberal wins BC주 자유당 압승 사민당 참패 Bloomberg 블룸버그 통신

British Columbia Liberals Elected for Third Term (Update2)

By Christopher Donville

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- British Columbia’s Liberal Party, led by Premier Gordon Campbell, defeated the New Democrats to govern Canada’s westernmost province for a third-consecutive term.

Campbell’s Liberals were elected or leading in 49 of 85 electoral areas at 10:55 p.m. local time, compared with Carole James’s New Democratic Party, which was leading or elected in 36 constituencies, preliminary results showed.

Campbell, who has cut taxes and government red tape since first being elected in 2001, urged voters in the province of 4.4 million people not to gamble with the economy by electing the New Democrats.

“I asked people, as we’ve gone through the last 28 days, to decide who is best to lead us through these challenging times, and I’ll tell everyone of them this: we will not let them down,” Campbell, a former mayor of Vancouver, said in his victory speech.

The election campaign was fought against the background of a provincial economy that contracted last year for the first time in more than a quarter century as prices fell for copper, natural gas, lumber and other commodities and the global economic slowdown deepened.

Preliminary results showed the Liberals with about 46 percent of the popular vote and the NDP with 41 percent.

“It’s very clear the economy was a concern to people and they were looking at not changing horses while the province’s economy was in hard times,” James said in an interview on Global Television. “That very clearly had an impact on the campaign.”

First Elected

Campbell’s Liberals were first elected in May 2001, winning 77 of 79 seats in the legislature, on pledges to revive B.C.’s resource-dependent economy after a decade of rule by the union- backed NDP. The Liberals were re-elected in May 2005 with a reduced majority.

James conceded the party’s defeat in a speech to NDP supporters gathered at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, the provincial capital. James was elected in the constituency of Victoria-Beacon Hill.

“It’s very clear the economy was a concern to people and they were looking at not changing horses while the province’s economy was in hard times,” James said “That very clearly had an impact on the campaign.”

The Green Party, which was seeking its first seat in the provincial legislature, was shut out.

British Columbia voters also defeated a proposal to change the electoral system to a single-transferable vote form of proportional representation from a first-past-the-post system.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Donville in Vancouver at cjdonville@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 13, 2009 02:10 EDT