I originally posted this first entry in the
Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes II thread, but on second thought I've decided to make a thread specifically devoted to it, to avoid cluttering up the other thread. Hope you enjoy!
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For a while now I've been planning a new infobox series. I've already fleshed it out a fair bit, and have done most of the infoboxes already, and I'm quite proud of the overall quality of the series, so I feel that I'm ready to start posting it:
The Populist Problem of Preston Manning
Given the fact that they almost looked to be headed to victory, it's remarkable how turbulent the 1988 Canadian election was for the Liberal party. It's been well documented how, midway through the election (around the time of the debates), the Liberal national executive seriously considered removing John Turner as leader in favour of Jean Chretien, who by this time had been out of politics for two years. It was thought that Chretien would be a significant improvement over Turner, who hadn't been all that impressive in Question Period and who had run a terrible campaign four years earlier. Indeed, at the time the Liberals looked to be at severe risk of being overtaken by the NDP. Ultimately, Turner was kept on as leader and managed to run a surprisingly good campaign, doubling the Liberals' seat count despite failing to form the government. Suppose, however, that Turner
was replaced by Chretien. The result? In my mind, not good.
The chaos of the Liberal leadership, stories of infighting, Chretien's inexperience of running a national campaign (particularly one already underway), etc. all doom the party to opposition right from the moment Chretien assumes the leadership, with Ed Broadbent's NDP overtaking the Liberals to form the official opposition (winning a handful of seats in Quebec in the process, a first for the party) and Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives winning a relatively easy re-election with a second majority, despite a brief scare over opposition to free trade - the opposition is too split to really put the government at risk. While the Liberals lose over five percent in the popular vote, they nevertheless manage to slightly increase their seat count due to PC losses. While many pressure him to resign, Chretien ultimately decides to stay on as Liberal leader to help rebuild the party.
Despite having formed the opposition, the NDP becomes very weak due to the same reasons as OTL: the recession of the early 1990s leaving the party with unpopular provincial governments in Ontario and British Columbia. With the party significantly dropping in the polls, Broadbent finds himself practically forced into retirement, and he is replaced as NDP leader and Leader of the Opposition by personally-popular Yukon MP Audrey McLaughlin, who many see as the candidate best able to win back NDP support in Quebec, which had significantly dropped following the formation of the separatist Bloc Quebecois (of which NDP MPs François Beaulne and Remy Trudel had been founding members).
Seeing the weakness in the two main opposition parties, Brian Mulroney opts to stay on as PC leader and Prime Minister and fight the 1993 campaign. This proves to be ill advised, as Mulroney, despite being a "steady hand" and experienced campaigner, has become significantly unpopular, due to a combination of the poor economic state of the country and the multiple failed constitutional negotiations. Indeed, the constitutional chaos of Mulroney's second-term tars all well-established parties, and it is with this in mind that many voters seek an outsider party, which they find in the populist Reform Party and its leader, Preston Manning. Running a populist campaign attacking the Ottawa establishment (indeed, downplaying the party's socially-conservative policies), Manning and Reform experiences a significant boon in support - enough to ultimately win a minority government in the 1993 election (during which both Mulroney and Chretien are defeated in their own ridings). Though Manning’s minority is incredibly slow, he is able to govern after forming a coalition with the now leader-less Progressive Conservatives.
