Saturday, December 02, 2006

Midnight Madness

Politics is one thing. Music is another. Just returned from an interested concert - Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto (beuatifully played) and Martinu First Symphony - the Edmonton Symphony were outstandingly good tonight, with these tw pieces giving them a great deal of scope. So that was good.

Now back to Alberta politics. Looks like Ed Stelmach will be the new Premier and party leader - if Morton fails to take second place (he's third with 60 of 83 ballot boxes counted) then his votes are reallocated and most will go to Stelmach (well, this is the working assumption) making him the winner. That is, unless Dinning gets 50% plus 1, which looks unlikely.

But what a process. You could buy memberships at the door and vote two minutes later (friends have already ripped up their membership). Contributions were possible from people resident elsewhere in Canada. Controls were so weak that it would be possible to vote early or vote often. Despite these real problems, some 160,000 people (app.) appear to have voted - a heck of a lot more than elected Stephane Dion.

The next few weeks will be very interesting, to say the least.

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