UPEI political science professor says clock ticking down to election time

Time is getting short for the governing Liberal Party to call the next P.E.I. election, according to UPEI political science professor Don Desserud.

Desserud previously predicted there would be an election this time last year.

"People love to remind me of that."

But there are signs the provincial government is gearing up for an election this spring he said.

Candidates nominated, spending announcements

"You see the signs, you see that they are ready, they are more ready than they were this time last year."

This year, there have been signs of an imminent election, including several candidate nominations by all parties and there has been a number of spending announcements from the governing Liberals in recent weeks.

"There is only so much of this you can go along with before you have to actually do something and there are only a few windows open for the government to call this election."

But still there has been no election called.

Other factors could be limiting the Liberal's options.

Many things could affect elections

Polls, the weather and the provincial financial outlook are all factors for when the election is called said Desserud.

"Of course the polling numbers matter a lot and you want your trends to be going up," he said.

"Economic figures, you want them to be going up, again that is a tricky one as well. This is what I mean by governments don't have as much leeway here as they might think they have."

"When the economy is doing poorly, everyone blames the government. When the economy is doing well they don't exactly put that on the government's side."

A strange factor in political elections is weather.

"It's little things like that can trip up a government because it affects your campaigning, it affects peoples' moods."

However, the biggest factor in winning an election is campaigning to gain voter support.

"Whatever it is at the beginning of the campaign, it may not be what it is at the end of the campaign and that includes those polling numbers," Desserud said.

The campaign period is still the most critical factor in winning an election.

Spring election likely 

With a five year constitutional period, the Liberals could wait until next May to call an election and they can not go beyond that, Desserud said.

"We are expecting a federal election this fall and it is not that they can't have the election at the same time as the federal election but that overtaxes the system, a lot of the volunteers are the same and it confuses people."

There is no good example of a government that has waited the full limit to call an election, most of them get wiped out said Desserud.

"So you end up coming back to the spring so really there is not much time left."

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