Global Information1953 Manitoba general election information
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57 seats of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba 29 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1953 Manitoba general election was held on June 8, 1953 to elect Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Manitoba, Canada. The election produced a majority government for the Liberal-Progressive party led by Douglas Campbell. His party won thirty-two of fifty-seven seats although with but 39 percent of the vote overall. To date this is the last election in which the Liberal Party won a majority of seats in Manitoba.
This was the first election held in Manitoba after the breakup of a ten-year coalition government led by the Liberal-Progressives and Progressive Conservatives. The coalition, which began in 1940, was ended in 1950 when the Progressive Conservatives crossed to the opposition side.
Prior to the 1949 election, Winnipeg's single at-large 10-member district was broken up into three four-member districts. The new districts were named Winnipeg Centre, Winnipeg North and Winnipeg South, to elect four members each, through STV. St. Boniface elected two members through STV. (The 1953 election was to be the last provincial election in Manitoba to have multi-member districts and election by STV, because after that election all MLAs in Manitoba were elected through First-past-the-post voting in single-member districts.)
The other districts elected one MLA by Instant-Runoff Voting. This was to be the last provincial election in Manitoba to use Instant-Runoff Voting in these districts.
The result of the election was a convincing victory for the Liberal-Progressive government of Premier Douglas Campbell, which won thirty-two of fifty-seven seats although with but 39 percent of the vote overall.
Three Independent Liberal-Progressives were also elected.
The Progressive Conservatives, led by Errick Willis, saw their representation in the legislature increase from nine to twelve members. This was a disappointing result for many in the party. Willis had been a prominent cabinet minister in the coalition government, and many questioned the sincerity of his new-found opposition to Campbell's ministry. The following year, he lost the leadership of the party to Dufferin Roblin.
The social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) suffered a disappointment under new leader Lloyd Stinson, falling from seven seats to five. Its 17 percent of the vote made it due about eight seats proportionally.
During the campaign, the Winnipeg Free Press newspaper devoted considerable attention to the return of the Social Credit Party in Manitoba. The party had not contested the previous provincial election, but was buoyed by the recent Social Credit victory in British Columbia and ran several candidates. The Free Press, which supported the Liberal-Progressives, and played up the threat of a Social Credit victory to rally popular support for the government. The actual threat posed by Social Credit was minimal: only two of its candidates were elected, although it did receive 13 percent of the vote.
The Communist Labor-Progressive Party also won representation in the legislature, with party incumbent Bill Kardash taking one of the four constituency seats in Winnipeg North. This was the last time that a Communist candidate won election to the Manitoba legislature, or indeed to any provincial legislature in Canada.
Two independent candidates were elected. Stephen Juba, the mayor of Winnipeg, was one of them.