It takes followers as well as leaders to create a crisis

Nearly all the media commentaries on the current crisis in the NDP government have focused on the shortcomings of Greg Selinger as a leader.

This focus reflects the obsession within our culture and our politics with leadership, understood as personal attributes possessed by individuals who occupy positions on authority.

In my view, leadership is better understood as an interactive process in which a group of people, in the face of challenges and uncertainty, seek to find agreement on goals and the means to achieve them. In this perspective the distinction between leaders and followers is blurred.

Followers count on leaders but, even more importantly, leaders rely on followers. Another aspect of the leadership process is the interaction among followers.

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Within a governing political party, leader-follower relationships exist on a number of levels, most obviously between the premier and the cabinet and the caucus, but also with the executive of the party, the provincial council, leading figures within the party and key stakeholders, which in the case of the NDP would be public sector unions.

Even within a cabinet of 18 ministers, there will be different types of followers with different talents and motivations. Veteran ministers work alongside of junior ministers. Some ministers are perceived as strong and others as weak. A few ministers are activist champions of particular policy ideas. Others like the status of being ministers without having a policy agenda of their own.

Some ministers identify with the premier and try to understand the demands and constraints on his leadership. Other ministers are rivals and harbour their own leadership aspirations. Often there is an inner group of ministers in whom the premier has greater confidence and upon whose advice he relies more often. 

The exemplary cabinet minister is a team player but not a "yes" person. Such a minister exercises independent critical judgment and is generally loyal to the leader and the party.

Focus on political survival

However, when the leader and the party are spiralling downward in the polls, many ministers and backbenchers will focus on political survival both for themselves and the party.

News reports suggest that the party pollster recently told the annual general meeting of the NDP that the party could face “annihilation” at the next election, likely to take place in April 2016. This prospect created a clash between loyalty to Greg Selinger as leader and premier and loyalty to the party and its future.

Five cabinet ministers attacked the premier’s leadership publicly and resigned. One caucus member called on the premier to resign. There is speculation that the caucus is split 50/50 on the future of the premier.

Some of the backbench MLAs may be resentful they were left out of the cabinet shuffle that took place in the fall of 2013 and see their chance of joining the inner circle fading as the party faces potential defeat in the next election.

No doubt, loyalists to the premier view the actions of the dissidents as hypocritical and self serving. They would argue that if the departed ministers had regarded the PST increase as bad public policy and a political disaster they should have resigned in protest.

Instead those ministers kept the “perks” of being in cabinet, voted for the budget in the legislature and took part in the campaign to “sell” the budget to the public.

Further decline in the polls

It was only after the budgetary communications strategy was botched and had to be rebooted, and the polling numbers suggested a third-place finish in the next election, that the dissidents called for the premier to resign.

Rather than solve the political troubles of the party, their actions are seen as contributing to further decline in the polls and playing into the hands of Brian Pallister and the Conservatives.

In the non-parliamentary wing of the party, prominent figures have spoken out against Selinger. Many of these political activists were prominent during the decade of Gary Doer as premier and they believe that Selinger will squander the electoral gains of that era, which made the NDP the odds-on favourites to win most elections.

As premier, Doer was a pragmatic, moderate and opportunistic leader whose appeal crossed party lines. Selinger is seen as more ideological, stubborn and arrogant.

Power within the party and government was centralized under Doer, but he had political staff, particularly Michael Balagus former chief of staff, to gather intelligence and to deal with unrest. Selinger’s staff are seen as less successful in this crucial role.

While Doer entered politics from a trade union background, Selinger was seen by some prominent figures in that movement as an academic egghead.

Leadership challenge

As of Nov. 9, 2014, Selinger has announced that he will agree to a leadership review at the party convention scheduled for early March 2015. If others feel they could provide better leadership, he suggested, they should challenge him for the job of party leader.

This move may buy Selinger some time. It will force the departed ministers to decide if one or more of them enter a leadership contest.

They may have trouble agreeing on one of their number to stand in order to avoid splitting the anti-Selinger vote. And, if a contest does develop, it will require followers on all levels to compare Selinger, not to some hypothetical perfect leader, but an actual alternative leader with both strengths and weaknesses.

On the other hand, the premier’s action will create distractions in the governing process for four months. It will provide dissidents with an incentive to offer pointed criticisms of past policies and political tactics as a way to gain votes at the convention.

Pallister can give his speech writers a sabbatical because New Democrats will be attacking one another.  

The cliché about there being two sides to every story does not apply to the dramatic theatrical events happening on Broadway over the past two weeks.

In this case there are at least four or five sides to the story and a fixation on the actions of one person will miss important dimensions of an unprecedented development in Manitoba political history.

Paul Thomas is professor emeritus in political studies at the University of Manitoba.