Canada moves to right in vote

OTTAWA — Canada took a tentative step to the right in yesterday’s federal election, ousting the Liberals after 12 years in power and voting in a fragile minority Conservative government, television networks said.

Preliminary official figures at 11 p.m. showed the Conservatives winning or ahead in 122 electoral districts compared to 103 for the Liberals of Prime Minister Paul Martin.

The result was a personal triumph for Conservative leader Stephen Harper, a 46-year-old economist who forced through the creation of the party in December 2003 by uniting two squabbling right-wing movements.

“It shows that Canadians were looking for change,” deputy Conservative leader Peter MacKay told CTV.

Support for the Liberals shrank amid voter fatigue and a major kickback scandal that brought down Mr. Martin’s minority government in November.

How long Mr. Harper can stay in power is open to serious question, since he will have nowhere near the 155 seats he needs to hold a majority in the 308-seat House of Commons.

The Conservatives have no natural allies in Parliament and will have to govern on an issue-by-issue basis with the backing of other parties.

“Minority means we have to be constructive, and we have to be working together and finding common ground,” said Mr. MacKay.

Analysts think a minority Harper government would likely last between a year and 18 months.

Preliminary data showed the Conservatives had won 36.4 percent of the vote, up from 29.6 percent in the June 2004 election. The Liberals slipped to 31.3 percent, down from 36.7 percent.

Mr. Martin, 67, had tried hard to convince Canadians that Mr. Harper was an extremist who would try to strip away personal freedoms such as homosexual “marriage” and abortion.

But Mr. Harper shrugged off the attacks, vowing to clean up government, cut the national sales tax, clamp down on crime and cut waiting times for health care.

It was the first time a right-wing party had won an election since 1988, when the then Progressive Conservative government beat the Liberals.

One of the reasons for Mr. Harper’s success was a breakthrough in the French-speaking province of Quebec, where only a few weeks ago the Bloc Quebecois was predicting it would win the vast majority of the 75 seats available.

But the Conservatives, who had no representation at all in Quebec at the start of the campaign, were set to win 10 seats. The Bloc looked likely to lose three seats and end up with 50.

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