Voters, in the normal course of deliberations, choose the candidate that they judge to be the best choice — due to policies, partisan affiliation, personal character, whatever. There are circumstances though when it seems more important to vote against rather than in favour, namely, to vote for a candidate’s opponents — whoever they may be, and whatever qualities they may possess or lack — because it is of overriding importance that such a candidate be defeated.
Is that the case in this Saturday’s provincial election in British Columbia?
It seems that a great many B.C. voters think so. Premier David Eby called an election, despite having a slim majority government, two years ahead of schedule, when the opposition Conservative leader had just resigned after only several months in the job, so erratic, unstable and incompetent was her performance.
Eby struggled to find a plausible lie to explain his decision, given that the truth was obvious. The Conservatives were in disarray, without a leader, threatened by splinter parties. Why not call an election that would permit him to coast to an easy, enhanced re-election?
The power of the first minister to call an election at an advantageous time is constrained in the Westminster system by some conventions, democratic hygiene as it were, or simple good manners. One of those conventions is that the governing party does not take advantage of the opposition party’s leadership campaigns. For example, if the opposition party is gathering at a leadership convention, the governing party does not summon the legislature into session so it can proceed with business while the opposition is absent. And an election is not called when the opposition is without a leader.
When the comically inept Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned as Conservative leader only four months into her tenure, Eby’s NDP was up by four points — and he expected that absent an actual leader, the Conservatives would slide back. But the non-NDP factions in B.C. quickly united, appointed a sane leader and, within days of the campaign opening, the Conservatives were up by eight points — a 12-point swing in the first week. The race has narrowed in its final days, with a recent Angus Reid poll showing the Conservatives up by two points.
It seems clear that B.C. voters thought that Eby should be punished for his effrontery, independent of other factors that would usually go into the ballot decision. Given that in those early days little was known about the newly unified conservative factions, and even less known about their leader — the upsurge in support was not for them, but rather against Eby. That is a legitimate democratic response to those who are degrading democracy, as Eby was by putting his prerogatives as premier ahead parliamentary convention.
A similar dynamic is playing out in the United States, where some candidates are so appalling that they are putting at risk even safe seats. Recently I wrote in this space about Elon Musk’s work at the Department of Government Efficiency, the result of which was that the most powerful country in the world allowed the richest man in the world to cut off aid to the poorest people in the world.
Robert Bryce at The Spectator recently adopted a similar formulation about the Texas Senate race, where Musk has devoted considerable resources: “Last month, the richest man in world history threw $158 million into a last-ditch attempt to rescue the worst candidate for U.S. Senate in American history.”
He wrote of Ken Paxton , a man so repellant that his own Republican colleagues in the state house impeached him as attorney general. The cataract of corruption that cloaks him is the consequence of his appalling character. He is unfit for polite company, let alone high office.
Musk’s millions notwithstanding , the Republicans may lose a Senate election in Texas for the first time in nearly 40 years. Texans, it seems, know that sometimes a healthy democracy requires that a man simply be opposed, even contrary to historic voting patterns.
Eby is of the left, Paxton of the right. Democratic hygiene can be assaulted from either side. And for multiple reasons. Eby is not a corrupt man, but he did corrupt the conventions of parliamentary democracy.
It is often said that voters “punish” candidates or parties. That is less true than claimed, as a voter preference for one candidate does not constitute punishment for another. No one is entitled to public support, such that its withdrawal is a punishment, a deprivation of some right.
Sometimes, though, punishment is in order. And the voters are right to deliver it.
National Post
