Decline
Manning's last election win, in 1967, proved ominous for the party. Despite winning 55 of the 65 seats in the legislature, it won less than 45% of the popular vote—its lowest share of the popular vote since 1940. More importantly, the once-moribund Progressive Conservatives, led by young lawyer Peter Lougheed, won six seats, mostly in Calgary and Edmonton. Despite having wide support in Calgary and Edmonton (Manning himself represented an Edmonton riding), Social Credit was at bottom an agrarian-based party, and never really lost this character. The party didn't react nearly fast enough to the changes in Alberta as Calgary and Edmonton gained more influence.
Manning retired in 1968 and was replaced by Harry Strom at the party's first leadership election. However, Strom soon found himself eclipsed by Lougheed, whose modern and urbane image contrasted sharply with that of the dour Strom. In the 1971 election, Lougheed's PCs ended Social Credit's 36-year hold on power. The Socreds saw their share of the popular vote decrease slightly, finishing only five points behind the PCs. However, the PCs took every seat in Edmonton and all but five seats in Calgary. Due to a quirk in the first past the post system, this decimated the Social Credit caucus. They finished with only 25 seats to the PCs' 49, consigning them to the opposition benches for the first time in party history. Strom resigned as party leader in 1973 and was succeeded by Werner Schmidt, vice-president of Lethbridge Community College, who didn't hold a seat in the Legislative Assembly. Schmidt won the 1973 leadership election by defeating former Highways Minister Gordon Taylor, former Education Minister Robert Curtis Clark, who was also the party's acting leader in the legislature, and John Ludwig, dean of business education at Alberta College.
Schmidt won the leadership in an upset victory on the second ballot with 814 votes, defeating Clark, who had the support of half of the Social Credit caucus, by a margin of 39 votes. Schmidt had trailed Clark on the first ballot by a margin of 512 votes to 583.
First ballot
- Clark 583
- Schmidt 512
- Taylor 406
- Ludwig 71
(Ludwig eliminated, Taylor withdraws)
Second ballot
- Schmidt 814
- Clark 775
Social Credit sank into near-paralysis in opposition. Having spent all but a few months of its history prior to 1971 in government, it was unable to get the better of the Tories. The party's support collapsed in the 1975 election, when it fell to four seats—just barely holding onto official party status—and lost half of its popular vote from 1971. Schmidt failed to win a seat and resigned as party leader. Clark took the leadership unopposed. The party managed to stave off total collapse in the 1979 election, holding onto its four seats.
Read more about this topic: Alberta Social Credit Party
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