The drama is all but unprecedented in Canadian provincial politics: A sitting premier, deserted by most of his own staff, competing in a leadership contest against two erstwhile members of his own cabinet.
"If you wrote a script like this for House of Cards," one of those challengers said, "nobody would believe it."
Steve Ashton may have been exaggerating slightly, given the lack of sex and violence in the mess that has overtaken Manitoba's ruling New Democrats. Then again, with this weekend's leadership convention yet to kick off, there is still time.
Having suffered through a grim few years nationally, in which they lost power in Nova Scotia and missed chances to win it in British Columbia and Ontario, New Democrats are unlikely to be entertained by the way their only government in the country is tearing itself apart. For everyone else, it offers a case study in what happens when an attempt to follow a recent trend in provincial politics goes horribly wrong.
Manitoba New Democrats saw how governing parties in Ontario, B.C. and Alberta benefited in recent years from replacing their leaders. So they thought the sensible response to dismal poll numbers was to have someone new take over from Greg Selinger.
Instead, Mr. Selinger – so wounded by friendly fire that few people seriously think he could win next year's general election – has clung to his job and has a decent chance of keeping it this weekend. Theresa Oswald, favoured by much of the party's brain trust because she is seen to have the strongest electoral appeal, could fall short in her bid to oust him because grassroots members and union leaders resent her disloyalty. And the closest thing to a compromise candidate is Mr. Ashton, who as the legislature's longest-serving member is hardly a fresh face, and who is widely mistrusted within his own party.
"If this was part of a master Machiavellian plan," Ms. Oswald said in an interview, about the perception she helped orchestrate the insurgency to advance her own ambitions, "it was a terrible plan."
The saga dates back to 2013, when the Premier decided shortly before the budget that he would raise the provincial sales tax by a point to help pay for infrastructure. This shocked the electorate, since Mr. Selinger had ruled out such a measure during the 2011 election. It also came as a surprise to his cabinet.
His ministers initially tried to persuade the province that the hike was good policy. But they had little success abating Manitobans' anger, and as the NDP's poll numbers remained in the tank into 2014, they got restless.
Despite having led his party to the biggest majority government in its history in 2011 after taking over from third-term premier Gary Doer, Mr. Selinger did not command the same loyalty as his predecessor. Seen by some colleagues as stubborn and aloof, the former professor, municipal councillor and provincial finance minister is said to have lacked Mr. Doer's people skills.
"He was fairly well-regarded as a competent manager," said a former senior staffer for Mr. Selinger. "But he may not have been the first person that people would want to rally around."
Mr. Selinger met one-on-one with caucus members last summer, and Ms. Oswald and others have alleged that despite asking for candid advice, he ostracized those who gave it. Then, shortly after Labour Day, came a highly unusual caucus meeting.
Viewpoints Research, which does the party's polling and is run by some of Manitoba's most powerful New Democrats, had already shared with Mr. Selinger some alarming findings about how badly his relationship with the public was damaged. Unsatisfied with his response, the company presented the data to all 35 NDP MLAs, telling them they could be on pace for a single-digit seat count in the 2016 election.
After the meeting, and again a few weeks later, MLAs debated whether Mr. Selinger should go. Meanwhile, according to his critics, Mr. Selinger went on acting as though nothing had happened. Then in late October, the dire warnings were seemingly validated by Winnipeg's mayoral election, in which heavily favoured former NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis lost big, with volunteers reporting they had heard about her party's battered brand at the doors.
The NDP's civil war broke out into the open in the days that followed, with a succession of Mr. Selinger's ministers publicly saying he should consider stepping aside. When he declined, five senior cabinet members resigned. That included his ministers of finance, health, justice and municipal government – and his jobs and economy minister, Theresa Oswald.
Ms. Oswald insists she quit only as a matter of conscience, darkly alluding to being "morally and ethically" uncomfortable with unspecified demands by Mr. Selinger, but even her own supporters concede the obvious aim was to force the Premier's exit. Instead, Mr. Selinger executed a surprise manoeuvre. He didn't want to leave, and evidently didn't want to subject himself to a leadership review at his party's next scheduled convention. So he announced the party would go straight into a leadership campaign, as though it was choosing a new leader – except he would be one of the candidates, while still serving as premier.
If the sole object was keeping his job, this was a clever gambit. Leadership reviews are yes-no votes, at which the incumbent requires a majority of votes to keep his or her job, and by unofficial standards probably somewhere more than 65 per cent. At a delegated leadership convention, the eventual winner can come in with less than 40 per cent, then scratch and claw to a majority.
It is difficult to tell Mr. Selinger's chances of pulling it off, because of the byzantine delegate-selection process for the slapped-together contest. Candidates' committed supporters have not been made official, some ridings have been given far more representatives than others, and organized labour has nearly a third of delegate spots, which it may or may not be able to fill. It appears that any of the three candidates could finish last on the first ballot, triggering a showdown between the other two.
Mr. Selinger's survival strategy seems to have included locking down union support by giving labour activists senior positions in his office and on the party's campaign committee. In the process, he has lost or driven away most of the political staff who worked for him previously – contributing to questions about just how much of a prize keeping his job would be, considering the Herculean work that would be required to win back Manitobans' support.
While Mr. Selinger's campaign is implicitly premised around solidarity – even if it precludes competitiveness in a general election – Ms. Oswald has rallied much of the NDP's backroom talent behind her by effectively making the opposite pitch. The youngest and most charismatic of the three candidates, she was not subtle in the interview about striking a contrast with Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister: "Two tall white guys yelling at each other across the chamber, I'm not sure is what people are looking for." On campaign readiness, she was similarly blunt: "We need a reboot on our election committee – a boot, not even a reboot."
Ms. Oswald's challenge is that solidarity is a defining principle for many New Democrats, and even some who know well the electoral challenges under Mr. Selinger can't abide the insurgency. "One of the things we've always been proud of is not washing our dirty laundry in public," Ms. Wasylicia-Leis, the defeated mayoral candidate, said in explaining why she's still backing Mr. Selinger. In her view, the dissidents are "tearing the family apart."
Mr. Ashton bills himself as best able to bring the family back together, in part because he did not join the initial uprising and only quit as infrastructure and transportation minister when ready to launch his campaign. (He is also the only one of the candidates vowing to reopen the sales tax issue, through a referendum.) But while he is popular on his home turf in northern Manitoba and has forged strong ties with some of Winnipeg's immigrant communities, he has a reputation within his party for being relentlessly ambitious and less than a team player. One of the explanations offered for how Mr. Selinger wound up in the Premier's office in the first place is that, competing against Mr. Ashton, he was the "anybody-but-Steve" candidate.
Whatever his other faults, Mr. Ashton has a gift for summarizing the NDP's current state. "I'm not a Catholic, but I love the concept of purgatory," he said. "Because it's the only way to describe this."
He was referring to the former ministers who tried to force the Premier's hand by quitting and got stuck on the backbenches, but he might as well have been talking about his party as a whole. That is, if its members don't feel they're somewhere even worse.
Adam Radwanski