Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the first Western leader to face the electorate since the financial meltdown began, won re-election with a significantly stronger minority government yesterday.
The Conservatives, who convinced voters they were the best choice to steer Canada through the economic turmoil, will still need opposition support to govern.
It will be Canada's third minority government in four years. Mr Harper's Conservatives defeated a Liberal minority government in the January 2006 election.
Initial results showed that the Conservatives won 38 per cent of the vote, above the 36.3 pe rcent they got in 2006. But vote splitting on the left left the party in a much stronger position.
Initial television projections gave the Conservatives 144 of Parliament's 308 seats, up from the 127 they held before the election but 11 short of the 155 needed for a majority.
The opposition Liberals were at 77, down from 95, the separatist Bloc Quebecois were steady at 48 seats and the leftist New Democrats were up seven to 37 seats. Independents took two seats and the Greens won none.
"We were expecting a minority government. It looks like it will be a strengthened one. We're going to get right back to work - that's what people expect us to do," Health Minister Tony Clement told Global Television.
The Liberals, who have historically governed Canada for longer than any other party, looked set for their worst performance since 1984 in terms of seats and their worst showing in popular vote since the 1860s. The rout could trigger a battle within the party to replace leader Stephane Dion.
However, he gave no suggestion he would go willingly.
"Canadians are asking me to be the leader of the opposition, and I accept that responsibility with honor," he told his supporters in Montreal in conceding defeat.
The Conservative leader ran on a modest platform of keeping taxes and spending under control. The Liberals proposed introducing a carbon tax while cutting income taxes and boosting social spending, and Mr Harper said the Liberal plan would throw Canada into recession.
Liberal leader Dion, a bookish francophone who sometimes makes mistakes in English, found it a hard sell at a time of relatively high energy prices to pitch his carbon tax plan.
"I think my party failed to deliver a real cogent response to the economic and financial crisis," said defeated Liberal legislator Garth Turner.
Dion started to cut into Mr Harper's lead during the campaign as he charged the prime minister, a former economist who is also fairly wooden, was not doing enough to prevent financial contagion from spreading into Canada.
But the Conservative lead over the Liberals widened again in parallel with specific action taken to improve Canadian bank liquidity. Mr Harper had the added benefit that markets and the Canadian dollar rebounded on Election Day.
Reuters