The provincial Progressive Conservative party is in good hands, says the outgoing premier of the province.Ed Stelmach made the statements on Wednesday during a visit to open the new Holy Trinity School in Olds. In a media session after his remarks about the school, he was asked about the leadership contest and the first round of voting on Sept. 17 that saw Gary Mar, Doug Horner and Alison Redford move on to a second round on Oct. 1 while Ted Morton, Rick Orman and Doug Griffiths were eliminated from the race.ìThe party's strong. We have cash in the bank to fight the next election and we see good candidates wanting to run Ö so that's positive. One of the most pleasing areas for me personally is to see the number of youth we've attracted to the party Ö so that means we have a lot of future leaders,î Stelmach said.The low voter turnout does not say anything about the support the party would receive in an election, he added.ìVoters will come out (on Oct. 1) as it narrows down to three. There's so many different political pundits. It's good for media, it gives everybody an opportunity to write another story, but based on my own personal experiences Ö and based on projections and some of the political pundits the province is in very good shape economically. Whoever takes over will have an excellent beginning. You'll see as we narrow down that the number (of voters) will grow,î he said.Stelmach said it will be up to whoever wins the race to decide when to call an election.When asked who he was voting for, Stelmach said, ìIt's up to the voters. We've narrowed it down to three, they're all good candidates,î he said.
