P.E.I. LIBERALS WIN ANOTHER MAJORITY GOVERNMENT

CHARLOTTE TOWN • The Liberals won a third straight majority government in Prince Edward Island on Monday night in an election that produced a surprise win for the Green party leader and a failure by the leader of the Progressive Conservatives to gain a seat in the legislature.

The Liberals led by Premier Wade MacLauchlan saw their majority slightly reduced from the 20 seats they held before the election, taking 18 seats to eight for the Tories and one for the Greens.

The election might best be remembered for the strong showing by the Greens and New Democrats as they stood at more than 20 per cent of the popular vote in a province where they have struggled for support.

Peter Bevan-Baker’s win for the Greens in Kellys Cross-Cumberland was a first for the party in P.E.I.

Tory Leader Rob Lantz increased his party’s seat count by five seats but lost in the riding of Charlottetown-Brighton by 24 votes, leaving questions about his political future.

The opposition parties used the campaign to question the Liberal government’s accountability on an immigrant investor program and a bid to become the country’s Internet gambling regulator.

But the Liberals presented a fresh face in their bid for a third straight majority government in MacLauchlan, who became party leader and premier in late February after Robert Ghiz stepped down after almost eight years in power.

The 60-year-old former president of the University of Prince Edward Island was up against Lantz as his main challenger. The 45-year-old former Charlottetown city councillor also became leader of the Tories in February.

It was the first provincial campaign as leader for the NDP’s Mike Redmond, who failed to win a seat.

Bevan-Baker, 52, a dentist, led the Greens for the first time as well after a number of attempts to get elected both provincially and federally.

“I guess 10th times the charm,” he told party supporters at a rally in his riding.

When the 27-seat legislature was dissolved four weeks ago, the Liberals held 20 seats, the Tories had three seats, there was one Independent and three seats were vacant.

MacLauchlan moved quickly to deal with the challenges facing his government. Soon after he took the helm of the party, he introduced a series of conflict-of-interest reforms aimed at improving government transparency and accountability.

The moves came after a three-year RCMP investigation into allegations of fraud surrounding the immigrant investor program, which police closed in January with no charges laid.

MacLauchlan has also asked the province’s auditor general to examine an Internet gaming plan that was scrapped in February 2012, but remains at the centre of questions about the conduct of current and former elected officials and staff.

Despite those issues, the former academic — who is also the province’s first openly gay premier — was the perceived front-runner in the race.

His bid to remake the image of the Liberal party has been helped by the infusion of many new faces among the Liberal candidates. There are eight ridings where the winners from the 2011 election did not seek re-election, seven that were won by the Liberals.

The Tories started the campaign by focusing on government accountability. There were a few attack ads at first, but the party seemed to back off when MacLauchlan suggested it wasn’t the Island way of doing politics.

Still, Lantz came back to the accountability theme at the end of the campaign, telling a rally of supporters: “People are tired of the scandals, tired of the mismanagement and tired of being told one thing when they know the Liberals talk the talk but never walk the walk.”