Ignatieff tops first ballot in Canadian Liberal convention

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Saturday, December 2, 2006

Michael Ignatieff has been confirmed as the front-runner at the Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention following the release of the results of the first ballot. The former Harvard academic leads the field of eight contestants with 1,412 votes (29.3%). As expected, Bob Rae is in second place with 977 vote (20.3%). Stéphane Dion did better than expected and is in a tight battle for third place with Gerard Kennedy with Dion receiving 856 votes (17.8%) two more than Kennedy's 854 votes (17.7%).

Ignatieff, Rae, Dion and Kennedy are considered to be the only candidates with a realsitica possibility of winning this weekend's convention as the other four candidates finished with less than 5% support.

80% of the delegates were committed to vote for specific candidates on the first ballot under the party's delegate selection process. In subsequent ballots, however, delegates will be free to vote for whomever they wish.

The ex-officio delegates who are former Cabinet ministers, MPs and senior party officials, were free to vote as they wished on the first ballot providing an element of uncertainty. The results, however, closely mirrored the allocated vote of committed delegates, however, except for a stronger than expected showing for Dion who placed fourth in committed delegates elected at riding Delegate Selected Meetigns but who finished third in tonight's first ballot, edging out Kennedy, due to the support of ex-officio delegates.

Voting on the second ballot begins Saturday morning at 9am with subsequent ballots occurring throughout the day, as needed, until one candidate emerges with a majority of the vote.

Martha Hall Findlay did better than expected by receiving 130 votes but still finished last on the first ballot and is therefore eliminated by the contest. Prior to the announcement of the results candidate Joe Volpe announced that he would be withdrawing after the first ballot in order to throw his support to Bob Rae.

**First Ballot Results**
Candidate	Elected Delegates	Percentage
Michael Ignatieff	1,412	29.3%
Bob Rae	977	20.3%
Stephane Dion	856	17.8%
Gerard Kennedy	854	17.7%
Ken Dryden	238	4.9%
Scott Brison	192	4.0%
Joe Volpe	156	3.2%
Martha Hall Findlay	130	2.7%

Sources

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has more about this subject:

Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention, 2006

Liberal Party of Canada website
Canadian Press. "Ignatieff ahead after first ballot" — Toronto Star, December 2, 2006
Bill Curry, Gloria Galloway and Michael Valpy. "Ignatieff wins first ballot - Stéphane Dion makes a surprise move to third place" — Globe and Mail, December 2, 2006

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