New Brunswick NDP meet to elect new leader

The province's NDP will pick a new leader this weekend in Moncton and begin the process of rebuilding the party after dismal election results in 2006.

Communications specialist Dennis Atchison, 51, and former Catholic priest Roger Duguay, 44, will have their names on the ballot. Both men ran unsuccessfully in last year's provincial election.

Allison Brewer stepped down as leader when the party garnered just five per cent of the popular vote in the election. She said she couldn't continue in an unpaid position afterthe party didn't earn any seats in the legislature.

Of the 1,000 eligible voters, only 100 party members are expected to show up in person to vote on Saturday. With a one-member, one-vote system, many delegates have already mailed in their ballots to party headquarters, said Nan Luke, convention co-chair.

Unless the party is able to raise money and boost its profile in the province, it will continue to have difficulty electing members to the legislature, said Don Desserud, a political science professor at the University of New Brunswick.

It will become the responsibility of the new leader to rebuild the party from the ground up, said Desserud.

"It's incredibly difficult to do that unless you've got a dynamic leader that people will want to be with and want to meet and want to come out and see, so they have to do something that's going to be able to capture the imagination of the province," said Desserud.

"It's not so important you go into it well-known, but you'd better come out of this convention with some kind of a profile."

Both of the candidates have a strong background in communicating with the public, said interim leader Pat Hanratty.

"They realize that communication is vital, and also that the party does, and that they're going to have to step up the leader's schedule," Hanratty said.

According to the leadership candidate Atchison, the NDP needs to overcome internal resistance to trying new things and use the next three years to show voters that the party is a viable political option.

Meanwhile, Duguay has said the next leader must concentrate on raising money and restoring inactive riding associations.