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Liberals set sights on Official Opposition, despite having fewer candidates

Liberals set sights on Official Opposition, despite having fewer candidates

Dr. David Swann has been knocking on doors in his riding of Mountain View, in an effort secure his position as MLA for the fourth time come May 5th.

As the interim leader of the Liberal party, the 65-year-old says he's more passionate to make a difference.

"I think we're going to be the official opposition in the next election," he said. "I think people are really angry and everything I hear at the door is 'not going to vote PC.'"

But according to Lori Williams, a political scientist at Mount Royal University, that doesn't mean Albertans are going to vote Liberal in the coming election.

"They have lost more than half of their sitting caucus of the last election, people are not running again," Williams said.

"So it's basically two incumbents, both of whom are very popular in their own ridings and are basically being elected because of who they are."

Swann is one of those incumbents. The other is Laurie Blakeman, who is running in Edmonton-Centre under the Liberal, Alberta Party and Green Party banners — an effort to symbolically unite the progressive parties in her riding.

The party's fate is still yet to be determined this election but the Liberals are only running 56 out of a 87 potential candidates — the first time in recent history the Alberta Liberals have failed to nominate more than 80 candidates in a provincial election.

Both the Progressive Conservatives and NDP are running with full slates, while the Wildrose party is running 86 candidates.

Swann blames the low number of candidates on Jim Prentice's early election call.

"It's disingenuous, not only to other parties, it's contemptuous to democracy," Swann said.

Despite those challenge, Swann said he's ready to be the change he thinks Albertans need.