Posted on 06/29/2002 5:06:03 PM PDT by Clive
TORONTO - - Jean Chrétien remains Prime Minister, but he has lost the Liberal Party.
Lose the party and, sooner or later, he'll lose the country's top job. That equation now faces Mr. Chrétien. The party wants him gone. He wants to stay. Something has to give.
Mr. Chrétien would lose a leadership review vote taken today, and lose it badly. Nowhere in the party outside the cabinet does he command a majority. Leave the shadow of the Peace Tower, the world dominated by the Prime Minister's formidable array of powers, and senior Liberals, even those sympathetic to him, offer the same analysis: Mr. Chrétien is in trouble, worse trouble that he knows.
A majority of the caucus wants former finance minister Paul Martin; most Liberals across Canada want him, too. Wherever Mr. Chrétien turns, the numbers are against him. In Western Canada, the pro-Martin support is overwhelming -- more than 80 per cent in British Columbia and Alberta. In Ontario, Transport Minister David Collenette, a Chrétien diehard, insists the Prime Minister commands 70 per cent support. He is dreaming. The Chrétien share in Ontario is at best 40 per cent.
Nobody yet knows where Quebec Liberals stand, but Mr. Martin is far more popular among ordinary Quebeckers, provincial Liberals and large elements of the federal party. In Atlantic Canada, the word from Nova Scotia and English-speaking New Brunswick is awful for Mr. Chrétien.
So what does Mr. Chrétien do? And does he know how bad things are for him?
Senior Liberals not associated with the Martin camp have been trying to alert Mr. Chrétien through his advisers. They are not certain, however, that the message is getting through. They fear his palace guard is filtering the news, softening it, putting another spin on it, denying it.
The formal review of Mr. Chrétien's leadership comes at February's convention. But he will know his fate well before then. Delegate selection and membership voting starts in mid-November; the cutoff for selling memberships is before that.
By summer's end, or mid-September at the latest, the Prime Minister will have a clear idea of the numbers. He has about two months to turn the tide.
So what might his strategy be? Already, there is talk of a possible deal among those with his interests at heart. The Prime Minister has bugged a lot of Liberals by saying he might fight the next election. He might insist that a Liberal prime minister has earned the right to decide the timing of his departure; but the bulk of the party disagrees. Too many Liberals fear that, if Mr. Chrétien wins the February vote, he would carry on for years.
Mr. Chrétien, therefore, might be forced to announce that he will not seek another mandate. He might add that he would never leave the party with only a few months to select a new leader before the next election.
Such a concession, he might hope, would sway Liberals who favour Mr. Martin but recoil at the prospect of stabbing the Prime Minister. The deal would essentially be this: Let me win the leadership review, and I'll guarantee to be gone 12 to 18 months later. The onus would then swing to Mr. Martin to explain why he can't wait another year or so, and let the Prime Minister depart with dignity.
Variations on this strategy are being bandied about. The Prime Minister might set a date for his departure in exchange for cancelling the review vote and delaying the convention until it became a full-blown leadership affair.
If Mr. Chrétien cannot win the review, he'll try to avoid it. These kinds of deals, if accepted by the Martin camp, would allow him to avoid certain defeat and end the civil war. But the Martin camp will be suspicious of any deals, fearing that Mr. Chrétien will wiggle out of his commitment to leave. Martinites also know that their man will be 64 this summer. For a man of that age, every month counts.
Mr. Chrétien could try to avoid the review by challenging its legality or legitimacy. But the review mechanism sits in black and white in the party's constitution, put there by his own people trying to destabilize John Turner in the 1980s.
Provincial and national executives have approved rules for selling memberships. The rules may be bizarre and unfair and vary widely by province. They certainly fit Mr. Martin's strategic purposes more than Mr. Chrétien's. But they are there, and thousands of Liberals have already signed up under them.
Mr. Chrétien could resign, of course, once he understood his certain defeat. But his pride will inflame every fibre of his being against resignation under duress. He might be forced to resign before the review vote, but it would be the last option.
A curious void lies across the party -- the absence of any organization on the Prime Minister's behalf. It's as though Mr. Chrétien never dreamed it might come to this: defeat at his party's hands. Or that he missed the signals: the ever-present Martin organization, the spreading dissatisfaction with his governing style, the perceived arrogance, the desire for change. While he was governing, the party slipped away. To keep governing, he needs the party. As of now, it has gone.
He could start fighting, then take stock closer to November's meetings in constituencies across Canada. He could, in other words, try to keep his options open, enhance his bargaining power, maybe, just maybe, stave off defeat.
He can raise huge sums of money with a flick of the finger. He has ministers to do his bidding, and they can sign up thousands of members. His people can leak damaging material against Mr. Martin. He can bludgeon and cajole, threaten and entreat. He can take himself across Canada to party events, look Liberals in the eye and request, demand or plead for their support -- if not for himself, then for the sake of party unity.
Even then, it might not be enough, so far has he fallen. At which point, if defeat seems certain, anything to avoid, postpone or cancel the review becomes possible. These are the kind of options now being considered in a preliminary way as the magnitude of Jean Chrétien's predicament becomes clear.
The Liberal Party is involved in a circular firing squad.
Best we don't interfere.
Sure, it caused a diplomatic flap, but how sould one go about disproving a true fact?
LOL, you're kidding! How could I have missed that?
And that was propably the only time Chretien told the truth. :-}
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.