FREDERICTON — New Brunswick voters have elected a Liberal majority government, tossing out the incumbent Progressive Conservatives after six years in power and handing the reins to the first woman ever to lead the province.
Liberal Leader Susan Holt is a relative newcomer to the province’s political scene, having won a byelection last year, eight months after she became the first woman to win the leadership of the party.
She led the Liberals to victory after a 33-day campaign, thwarting Blaine Higgs’s bid to secure a third term as premier.
Holt repeatedly promised to bring a balanced approach to governing, which she said was in sharp contrast to what she described as Higgs’s “one-man show taking New Brunswick to the far right.”
The Liberal win marks a strong repudiation of Higgs’s pronounced shift to more socially conservative policies.
About 45 minutes after the polls closed, the Liberals were leading or elected in 31 ridings, the Tories were at 16 and the Greens two.