Martin may hang onto Liberal leadership even if he loses election

Hopefully he will do the honourable thing....


By JOAN BRYDEN

OTTAWA (CP) - Federal Liberals are growing increasingly resigned to losing power, but they're less certain they'll lose their leader.

Some veteran Grits are adamant that Paul Martin will have to resign immediately if he fails to win at least another minority government on Jan. 23. "If (Conservative Leader) Stephen Harper becomes prime minister, Paul Martin will have to step aside," said Toronto lawyer Andrew Kania.

Kania, who said he would support former deputy prime minister John Manley in any future leadership contest, is hopeful that Martin wouldn't need to be pushed into making a swift exit.

"Paul Martin has always been a good Liberal. I'm sure he'll do the right thing and step aside."

Others aren't so sure.

"It depends how strong the (Conservative) government is," said former Chretien-era minister Herb Dhaliwal.

Liberals would be wary of dumping their leader and embarking on a potentially divisive leadership contest if they feared the government could be toppled and the country plunged into an election at any time.

If Harper were to win a weak, unstable minority, Martin would be "cut some slack," Dhaliwal predicted. But in the case of a strong, stable Conservative minority, he said: "I think the writing's on the wall (for Martin)."

Another former minister, who didn't want to be named, predicted Martin would try to hang on no matter the election's outcome. Martin has spent so many years plotting to ascend to the throne, he's not about to give it up without a fight, the ex-minister said.

Other Liberals privately contend that even if Martin himself is willing to throw in the towel, his tight inner circle of advisers won't let him. Many have devoted years to getting Martin into the prime minister's office and will want another chance to prove they can get it right.

"They'll do everything they can to make him hang on," predicted one senior Liberal.

The ex-minister also described an alternate scenario making the Liberal rounds, based on the theory that if Harper were to win a minority Jan. 23, he'd have a good chance of turning that into a majority in a couple of years.

Under that scenario, Liberals might encourage Martin to stay to fight a third, losing election in order to give the party more time to rebuild from the ground up and to allow his eventual successor to remain untainted by electoral defeat.

"You use him as bait," the ex-minister said.

Martin was for years the undisputed and impatient heir apparent to Jean Chretien. At the moment, however, he has no single obvious successor, no one for his critics to rally around in an effort to hurry him out the door.

In any event, none of the potential contenders for the Liberal crown seems to be in any big rush.

A senior Manley strategist said the Liberal party has been mortally wounded by the ongoing civil war between the Martin and Chretien factions. A new leader would need to heal the wounds and unite the party - and calling for Martin's head on election night would be the worst way to embark on that mission, the strategist said.

Other potential contenders have their own reasons for being patient. Internationally acclaimed academic Michael Ignatieff needs to learn the ropes as an MP, assuming he wins his seat, before he can aspire to lead the party. Former ministers Martin Cauchon and Maurizio Bevilacqua are young enough to bide their time.

Former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna would need to time to get out of his current gig as Canada's ambassador to the U.S.

Implicit in all these Liberal musings about Martin's fate is a resigned acceptance of defeat on Jan. 23.

"At this point in time, people are essentially hoping the Conservatives don't get a majority," said Kania.

However, Kania and other Liberals do maintain some faint hope that the very possibility of a Conservative majority may yet scare enough voters back into the Liberal camp that Martin can eke out another minority.