Alberta general election, 1959

The Alberta general election of 1959 was the fourteenth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on June 18 1959 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.

Ernest C. Manning, in his fifth election as party leader and provincial premier, led the Social Credit Party to its seventh consecutive term in government, with 55% of the popular vote, and all but four of the sixty five seats in the legislature.

Social Credit was also helped by a split in the opposition vote: whereas in the 1955 election, opponents were largely united behind the Liberal Party, in this election the vote was divided between the Liberals and the resurgent
Conservative Party, now renamed the "Progressive Conservative Party". The PC Party, under the leadership of Cam Kirby, won almost 15% of the popular vote, placing ahead of the Liberals whose leader, Grant MacEwan lost his Calgary seat. The Tories and Liberals each won only one seat in the legislature while the Alberta CCF was shut out of the legislature for the first time in seventeen years.

The Social Credit government did away with the Single Transferable Vote system, that had been in place since 1926. The move was made to standardize and simplify voting results across the province. Under single transferable vote, results would take up to five days to count all the possible vote transfers, before anyone was declared elected. This was especially problematic, in Edmonton that elected seven members.

As a result 1959 saw the biggest increase in new districts since 1909 mostly in Calgary and Edmonton. The change was met by some harsh criticism at the time, for failing to consult the public, but it did little to hurt the Social Credit government at the polls.

Results

Note:

¹ The Conservative Party adopted the name "Progressive Conservative Party" for the 1959 and subsequent elections.

Members elected

For complete electoral history, see individual districts

ee also

*List of Alberta political parties

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