The NDP appears to have won enough seats to form government in British Columbia, however it is unclear whether it will be a majority or minority.
The Canadian Press is projecting that Premier David Eby’s New Democrats have won at least 46 seats, while holding a razor-thin lead in the undecided riding of Surrey-Guildford amid an ongoing count of absentee ballots.
There are 93 seats in the legislature and if the NDP’s lead holds in Surrey-Guildford, it will have enough for the barest majority of 47 seats, although the prospect of a judicial recount looms because the margin is so tight.
The B.C. Conservatives were elected in at least 44 seats, while the Green Party won two, in an election battle that came down to a count of about 22,000 absentee ballots on Monday, nine days after the Oct. 19 vote.
NDP House Leader Ravi Kahlon said Monday he was “glad to see the numbers come in and I’m glad to see we can move forward.”
“It’s still going to require a lot of co-operation in the legislature. We’re still going to be reaching out to the Greens to find ways to work with them.”
Kahlon said it was too early to say when the legislature would be recalled, but suggested one of the first orders of business will be swearing in a new cabinet.
The NDP said Eby would speak at a media availability at the legislature in Victoria on Tuesday.
The NDP overtook the Conservatives’ 12-vote lead in Surrey-Guildford as Monday’s count of absentee and special votes unfolded, and a mid-afternoon update from Elections BC had the NDP in front by 18 votes.
A count of more than 43,000 mail-in and assisted telephone votes provincewide over the weekend had put the NDP within striking range in Surrey-Guildford, sending the race down to the absentee ballots.
Conservative candidate Honveer Singh Randhawa went into the weekend’s count with a lead of 103 over NDP incumbent Garry Begg.
While Monday’s absentee vote finally produced a winner in the election, there could still be judicial recounts in any riding where the margin is less than 1/500th of all votes cast.
Margins in two ridings were within that threshold on Monday, with a handful of votes yet to be counted — Surrey Guildford, where the recount threshold is about 38 votes, and Kelowna Centre, where the Conservative lead of 43 was below the recount threshold of about 51 votes.
There have already been two full hand recounts in the election, although neither played a significant role in the outcome.
In Juan de Fuca-Malahat, where a recount ended Monday, the NDP lead of more than 120 votes has put it out of Conservative reach.
A recount on Sunday in Surrey City Centre reduced the NDP lead by three votes but it grew to more than 200 as absentee counting progressed.
A partial recount in Kelowna Centre saw the Conservative lead cut by four votes.
Aisha Estey, president of the B.C. Conservative Party, said she spent the weekend in a warehouse watching the counting of mail-in ballots.
In a post on social media, she said: “Elections BC staff have been working tirelessly and doing their best within the confines of the legislation that governs their work.”
“Would we have liked mail-ins to be counted closer to (election day)? Sure,” she added. “But I saw nothing that caused me concern.”
