February 4, 2000
Why Dosanjh won’t win - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER - Ujjal Dosanjh will not win the NDP Leadership on February 20th. That’s not a fact, just a prediction. Better yet, my gut instinct. Dosanjh is good, and a nice guy, a tough talker, but not as tough as Gordon Wilson. Wilson is probably the only man who can let Gordon Campbell on a run for his money. Wilson can yell, brow-beat, and rip you to pieces in a debate. Something Dosanjh can’t.
The A-G has Mike Harcourt’s backing. Harcourt threw his support to Dosanjh, because he felt Dosanjh was a less-of-a-threat and a booster of good Socialist morals. He inserted himself in the race, simply to denounce the Clark, Sihota and Wilson camp of shrill confrontation. It is that same confrontational front that took Harcourt down. Glen Clark wanted that job, and wanted it so bad, he would force Harcourt from office in the cloud of scandal only to befall from the same, in last year’s summer.
The greatest political lesson anyone can learn is, “Do not disturb your enemy when it is in the process of destroying itself.” The Chrétien Liberals did that in 1993, and the Campbell Liberals are doing that now; keeping a low profile and letting the NDP destroy itself throughout this arduous leadership contest.
The NDP is a party that’s all inclusive. Any culture and any belief can join. That’s something that also destroys it.
You have a party filled with staunch labour folk, who’s every 2nd word is an F one or a G-D that. Then you have the tree-huggers or the socialist of socialists. The former the Clark’s, Barrett’s and Sihota’s; the latter Dosanjh’s and Harcourt’s. It is precisely this in-fighting that will let the Liberals into power. Not the Fast Ferry fiasco, not the “fudget budgets”, not conflict-of-interest, or anything the else the NDP have done in government.
That’s why Ujjal Dosanjh won’t win the NDP leadership.
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