Progressive Conservative leadership vote promises to be unpredictable Saturday

The only thing predictable about Saturday's Progressive Conservative leadership vote is its unpredictability.

It's been almost two decades since a New Brunswick party leadership vote took more than one ballot and even longer since this many candidates were in the race.

But it's a scenario that's a virtual certainty this weekend with seven names on the ballot. No one is likely to hit the required 50 per cent in the first round.

The last vote to require more than one ballot was the PC contest in 1997, which featured four candidates. In that race, Bernard Lord won on the second ballot.

The 2008 PC leadership vote featured two candidates and the Liberal contest in 2012 had three.

Getting above 50 per cent on Saturday will require survivors of the first ballot to woo some of the candidates who are eliminated. That's what Lord pulled off in 1997, convincing two rivals to bring their supporters to him.

But that creates a range of scenarios, especially given that all seven are avoiding picking fights with each other in public.

Mild-mannered campaign

"It's a pretty mild-mannered campaign," says J.P. Lewis, a political scientist at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John.

"There's quite a consensus on a number of the issues.

"If we were to draw out a sketch on how the day unfolds, based on policy positions I find it difficult to sketch out where the endorsements would go."

One potentially dramatic, but plausible, turn of events would be if the leadership were won by someone other than the first-place finisher on the first ballot.

There's a long history of this happening in Canada.

In 2006, Stephane Dion placed third on the first ballot of the federal Liberal leadership race. But Dion's support grew with each ballot and he passed front-runners Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae.

"The two front-runners couldn't come together and figure it out," Lewis says.

"It allowed for Dion to sneak up the middle."

In 1976, Joe Clark was third on the first ballot of the federal PC race, but picked up more endorsements from candidates who dropped off and won on the fourth ballot.

At the provincial level, premiers including Liberals Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne of Ontario and PC Alison Redford of Alberta won their party leaderships after coming from behind.

Momentum important

Eldon Hunter, a New Brunswick Liberal who attended the 2006 federal Liberal convention won by Dion, says the dynamic depends on who is seen to have momentum.

"There's a movement among the lower-tier ones [who drop off] toward who may be the winner," he says, but the second-place candidate also has a chance to pick up support.

Someone in third place on the first ballot "needs to be able to get into second place" on the next ballot if they hope to come up the middle, he says.

Adding to Saturday's unpredictability is that a large number of PC members will be voting in satellite voting stations.

That means candidates hoping to win over rival camps have to have supporters in each location twisting arms.

Besides the Aitken Centre in Fredericton, PC members can vote at locations in Moncton, Saint John, Bathurst, St-Leonard and the Fundy islands.

A further challenge: even if an eliminated candidate throws his or her support to someone else, it's not clear they can bring their supporters with them. Those members may vote for someone else, or just go home.

PC leadership rules say the last-place candidate and any candidate who doesn't get 15 per cent of the vote must drop off the next ballot.

But the second ballot can have a maximum of only four candidates, meaning the first-ballot candidates in fifth and sixth place are eliminated whether they get 15 per cent or not.

A maximum of two candidates can make it onto the third ballot.