WILF HANNI, B.C. CONSERVATIVE LEADER QUITS: Takes 8 Board members with him

HANNI CHASTISES ‘SOME MEMBERS [WHO] PERHAPS DON’T UNDERSTAND THE LIMITS ON POPLULISM’

The leader of B. C.’s Conservative party has quit, taking eight board members along with him, forming yet another chapter in the fringe party’s history of infighting.

“We’re a populist party that takes its direction from its members, and some members perhaps don’t understand the limits on populism,” departing leader Wilf Hanni said yesterday as he confirmed his decision to not only step down as leader, but also to leave the party.  ”They have to learn that the majority still rules in a democracy,” he added.

The B. C. Conservative party ran 24 candidates in the last election, including Hanni as party leader, and took 2.11 per cent of the popular vote.

A former leader of the now defunct B. C. Reform party, Hanni survived an attempted coup last August when a faction sought not only to replace him as leader but ban him from the party.

Eventually the fight ended up in court, where Hanni won a decision that kept him in place for the election.

But, he said, during the election campaign another faction from within the party began “giving us difficulty,” which he said amounted to a final straw.

 

[CCC reprint: Victoria Times Colonist, Jonathan Fowlie, Canwest News Service, Friday, July 3, 2009, page A8]

[For an extended version of this Fowlie article from the Vancouver Sun, please refer to the comments section below.]