Rae, Ignatieff stay away from leadership talk

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THE CANADIAN PRESS

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TORONTO - Liberals Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae won't say it, but political observers are predicting both men will be considering their leadership ambitions in the wake of the party's poor performance at the polls.

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THE CANADIAN PRESS

Michael Ignatieff

The Canadian Press

Bob Rae

Ignatieff and Rae both easily took their Toronto ridings, as did former leadership contenders Martha Hall Findlay and Gerard Kennedy.

But the Liberals were on track to fall around 20 seats short of the 95 they held before the election was called.

Observers say that total doesn't bode well for Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, although he has said he had no intentions of resigning since he's "not a quitter."

When Rae was asked if his team was already preparing for a leadership race and if he was ready to run, he said: "Mr. Dion is our leader and Mr. Dion will stay our leader."

Ignatieff called the election results "disappointing" but also sidestepped talk of party leadership.

"There's no question that this result is disappointing. There's no hiding it and I want to be one of the people that helps the party rebuild," he said.

"But we have a leader, so the leadership issue isn't open and I'm not going to discuss it."

University of Toronto Prof. Robert Bothwell says Dion's Liberal colleagues won't be calling for him to step down right away, but adds that it may not take long before some do.

"There'll be a lot of chants about 'rallying around the leader' and all that stuff and whether they mean it or not, they have to say it," Bothwell said.

"I think there's a certain grace period -- whether that might be a day, a week, a month, only the possible candidates know for sure."

Trent University Prof. Dimitry Anastakis said "the sharks may be circling pretty quickly" around Dion but it realistically may not work for the party, since they can ill afford another leadership convention.

"Politically, the party might be interested in moving quickly but financially, it would be very difficult for them to do so," he said.

But 60-year-old Rae and 61-year-old Ignatieff may not want to delay the leadership process for long, Anastakis added.

"If they're going to make a run they need to go soon, because to get into a leadership position and then perhaps trigger an election in the next year or two you want to do it before, basically, you become a senior citizen," he said.

Paul Nesbitt-Larking of the University of Western Ontario disagreed, saying neither is too old to stick around in politics for another decade, or more.