Andrea Horvat’s time as leader of the New Democratic Party of Ontario is coming to an end.
Horvat has announced he is stepping down from a 13-year-old speech during his concession speech in Hamilton on Thursday night after another defeat in the provincial election.
“My commitment to you will never waver and I will continue to work to gain your trust every day. I will continue to do so. But tonight is the time to hand over the torch, to hand over the baton, to hand over the leadership of the NDP, “said an emotional Croat.
“And you know what, it makes me sad, but it makes me happy because our team is so strong right now.”
Horvat said that although her party did not win as an official opposition, the NDP would be ready to fight Doug Ford’s cuts.
“I’m not shedding tears of sadness. I shed tears of pride. Look at you. Look at all of you. Look at what we did together,” she said.
“I can assure you, the people of Ontario, that as your official opposition, we will work hard every day to fix what is most important to the people of our province of Ontario. Do you know why? Do you know why we will do this work? Because your priorities were our priorities before the election. And they were our priorities during the election. And they will be our priorities after the election, because that is us as the New Democrats.
CTV News predicts that the Croatian NDP will take second place in opinion polls, which means that her party will once again form the official opposition. Doug Ford will be re-elected Prime Minister of Ontario, with his Progressive Conservative Party expected to win a government by a second majority.
Thursday’s election results came as no surprise, as some polls predicted a similar result.
For Horvat, who is running for the fourth time in Ontario, the results were not what he had hoped for, given his party’s strong performance four years ago.
Entering the election campaign, the NDP was in a strong position with dozens of incumbents and a well-stocked party coffers.
However, the NDP failed to gain momentum during the four-week campaign, in which Horwath received a positive test for COVID-19 at one point, prompting it to briefly move its policy online. Polls have predicted that the party is not fighting for a government, but instead is fighting for second place with the Liberals.
And while it looked like it won this battle on Thursday, the NDP will return to Queen’s Park with fewer seats than it had at the time of the dissolution. CTV News predicts that the Grits will have third party status in Queen’s Park.
In 2018, the New Democrats won 40 of the 124 seats in the provincial parliament, the largest since 1990, when Bob Ray’s NDP formed a majority government. Unofficial results at 11 pm show that the party was chosen or leading in 31 rides.
Many political experts believe that this year’s election is Croatia’s last chance to become prime minister, and any result other than that could lead to the end of her time as NDP leader.
The 59-year-old became the party’s first female leader when she was elected in 2009. Although she fell behind in third place in her first two NDP elections, Horvat survived leadership scrutiny. It was attributed to growing party support, which culminated in 2018 when the NDP received more than 1.9 million votes.
Horvat is expected to win her ride at the Hamilton Center, which she has represented since 2007.
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