weak conservatives

New Conservative Government has Weakest Mandate in Canadian History
26/01/2006

by Greg Morrow : Fact of the day: not to take anything away from the Conservatives’ hard-fought victory, but the mandate they won yesterday is the weakest in Canadian history.

That is, the seat share of the incoming Conservative government (124 seats out of 308, or 40.3%) is the lowest of any party ever. Here’s the complete list of winning parties and their share of the seats in parliament (ranked from strongest mandate to weakest):

YEAR PARTY SEAT SHARE
1958 PC 78.5%
1984 PC 74.8%
1940 LIBERAL 72.7%
1949 LIBERAL 72.5%
1935 LIBERAL 69.8%
1878 CONSERVATIVE 66.5%
1882 CONSERVATIVE 66.2%
1917 CONSERVATIVE 65.1%
1904 LIBERAL 65.0%
1874 LIBERAL 64.6%
1953 LIBERAL 64.5%
1900 LIBERAL 62.0%
1908 LIBERAL 60.2%
1911 CONSERVATIVE 60.2%
1993 LIBERAL 60.0%
1968 LIBERAL 58.7%
1988 PC 57.3%
1891 CONSERVATIVE 57.2%
1887 CONSERVATIVE 57.2%
2000 LIBERAL 57.1%
1930 CONSERVATIVE 55.9%
1867 CONSERVATIVE 55.8%
1896 LIBERAL 55.4%
1974 LIBERAL 53.4%
1980 LIBERAL 52.1%
1997 LIBERAL 51.5%
1872 CONSERVATIVE 51.5%
1965 LIBERAL 49.4%
1921 LIBERAL 49.4%
1963 LIBERAL 48.7%
1979 PC 48.2%
1926 LIBERAL 47.3%
1925 CONSERVATIVE 47.3%
2004 LIBERAL 43.8%
1962 PC 43.8%
1957 PC 42.3%
1972 LIBERAL 41.3%
2006 CONSERVATIVE 40.3%