Was it a promise or a threat? Just one month after he was forced to resign as premier, Glen Clark told a Vancouver newspaper columnist his political career was far from over. "I will come back," Mr. Clark said. "I'm only 41 and you're not going to get rid of me that easily."

In truth, there had been nothing easy about Mr. Clark's August 21 exit from the highest political office in the province. Ever since his house was raided by the RCMP on March 2 as part of a far-reaching investigation into illegal gambling and influence peddling, many British Columbians—both inside Mr. Clark's governing New Democratic Party and without—had been pressuring him to resign. It took the unsealing of police search warrants on August 20 to finally force him to leave.

But the ensuing race to pick his successor shows that Mr. Clark, even though he is out of office, is still attempting to wield power within the NDP. In fact, he stands accused of plotting to prevent Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh from replacing interim premier Dan Miller. To many observers, Mr. Clark's alleged subterfuge epitomizes the nature of the NDP leadership race—vicious, brutal and, in the end, distracting. For, as leadership hopefuls jockey for position with all the subtlety of roller derby racers, important provincial affairs such as Indians' illegal logging in the Okanagan and the influx of Chinese migrants are not getting the attention they deserve.

What is ironic, says Trinity Western University political scientist John Redekop, is that so many people are fighting so furiously to lead a party that has consistently polled less than 20% in voter-preference surveys throughout the year. "It's like rats running towards a sinking ship," he says.

Within days of Mr. Clark's resignation, three front-runners emerged in the race to replace him. They were: Attorney General Dosanjh, the media favourite whose name is most often modified by such words as "integrity" and "moderation"; Joy MacPhail, a favourite of Big Labour who had resigned as finance minister the previous month in an attempt to distance herself from Mr. Clark's disastrous leadership; and Ms. MacPhail's successor in the finance ministry, Gordon "Flip" Wilson, the political gadfly who over the past decade led two other provincial parties, the B.C. Liberals and the Progressive Democratic Alliance, and who was said to be Mr. Clark's personal choice. NDP MP Svend Robinson was also considered a likely candidate, as was provincial cabinet minister Corky Evans.

Mr. Dosanjh quickly found himself the target of repeated internal attacks orchestrated by Clark loyalists such as cabinet ministers Moe Sihota and Harry Lali. They alleged Mr. Dosanjh had an unfair head start in the leadership race because, as attorney general, he had known since March 3 that Mr. Clark was under criminal investigation and would eventually have to resign. They failed, however, to provide any proof of this. Clark supporters also alleged Mr. Dosanjh had delivered the coup de grâce to Mr. Clark's leadership by holding a news conference on the afternoon of August 20 confirming the then-premier was, indeed, under criminal investigation.

Providing potentially explosive background to this struggle was the fact Mr. Dosanjh was lining up support among moderate members of the politically active Sikh faith, while Messrs. Sihota and Lali were courting Sikh fundamentalists, presumably with an eye to turning them over to Mr. Wilson.

Meantime, Ms. MacPhail's supporters assembled a "Joy-to-the-World" leadership team and, according to one Vancouver television station, she told her constituency staff that she would, indeed, run for the leadership. But like Mr. Dosanjh, her leadership bid met strong opposition from Clark loyalists, who maintained her July 16 resignation from cabinet was an act of betrayal.

Any question that Mr. Clark was not part of the leadership power plays was dispelled September 12 when, according to Province columnist Michael Smyth, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Sihota attended a barbecue at the former premier's East Vancouver house. "Impeccable sources inform me that the three NDP titans retreated to the basement, where they discussed the brewing battle for the party leadership and premier's office. Wilson, I'm told, did a lot of listening as Clark and Sihota vented their spleen" at Mr. Dosanjh and Ms. MacPhail. "The bottom line of the basement summit meeting: MacPhail and Dosanjh must both be blocked from winning the NDP leadership."

Further evidence of Mr. Clark's plotting surfaced September 16 when longtime NDP activist David Schreck, a one-term MLA in the Mike Harcourt administration who later became an aide to Mr. Clark, contacted the news media with an amazing tale. Anti-Dosanjh sentiment among the Clark-Sihota group had become so hysterical, Mr. Schreck alleged, that the two men were telling New Democrats they would "withhold support in the Legislature" from the attorney general if he were to become premier. Their plan was "to bully Mr. Dosanjh into not running or to intimidate delegates into not supporting Ujjal out of fear of the consequences if he were to become leader—that the government could collapse," Mr. Schreck told a CBC reporter.

Mr. Sihota responded by saying Mr. Schreck was "hallucinating." In an astonishing aside, Mr. Sihota told reporters his loyalty to the party is so great that, when the Casinogate scandal first erupted last spring, he had deliberately attempted to draw fire away from Mr. Clark by telling reporters he had accepted free ski trips.

Returning to B.C. from a trade mission, Premier Miller cautioned the leadership hopefuls to cool it. "The public—British Columbians—will only look to New Democrats with dignity and respect if we first choose to treat each other in that manner," he told reporters. "The tone and manner in which we choose the new leader will be as significant as the choice of who that new leader will be."

Also significant is the actual date of the party's leadership convention. Meeting in Prince George, the NDP's executive council decided against a fall gathering and voted to stage the vote February 18-20, 2000, in Vancouver. A fall convention might have favoured the well-organized Mr. Dosanjh, while the spring date is said to give NDP newcomer Mr. Wilson a better chance.

Mr. Miller's warning, the late convention date and the fact no candidates had actually declared their intention to run all suggested that leadership race controversies would subside. But that was not the case. Just a day after Mr. Wilson used his position as finance minister to announce that the provincial government's actual deficit for the current fiscal year is $1.5 billion—twice what the government had admitted under its oft-criticized bookkeeping methods—Premier Miller reassigned him to the education portfolio. "I made these changes in order to ensure that the finance minister's energies are focused solely on the budget process," Mr. Miller said in a news release.

Party officials explained Mr. Miller did not want Mr. Wilson to use the high-profile finance portfolio to give him an unfair advantage over other prospective leadership candidates. It was pointed out that Mr. Wilson's replacement in finance, Paul Ramsey, pledged he would not seek the leadership. And Mr. Miller also reasserted that he himself would not be seeking the leadership.

Left unanswered by the premier, however, is the question of how he would apply his level-playing-field logic in the future. If a backbench MLA decided to seek the leadership, for example, would Mr. Miller remove all candidates from cabinet in order to put everyone on an even footing?

Meantime, the acrimony permeating the leadership race was taking its toll. In announcing last week he would not seek the leadership, MP Robinson said he had "been deeply troubled by the level of personal attacks." Mr. Dosanjh said earlier the infighting was causing him to reconsider his leadership aspirations. "Sometimes to walk away takes much more courage, greater courage, for the greater good," he told reporters September 22. "If you ask me, I'm leaning strongly in favour of not running."

Whether this public profession of doubt was sincere was not clear, however. Some observers said the comments could merely be part of an attempt by the attorney general to generate sympathy and thus boost his candidacy. Indeed, in what appeared to be a well-organized publicity stunt, about 30 of Mr. Dosanjh's supporters gathered at his home September 26 to persuade him to run. As well, Dosanjh supporters last week launched a website boosting his candidacy.

The incessant infighting and internal machinations have led several observers to conclude the New Democrats are so consumed by the leadership race that they have rendered themselves incapable of governing. "All of which begs the question: Is there a government in Victoria? If there is, what does it stand for and where is it going?" the National Post's Mark Hume asked recently. B.C. Liberal whip Rich Coleman is similarly concerned. "These guys are in disarray," he says. "They're all over the map."

TWU's Prof. Redekop finds it unusual that political ideology is not the factor it once was in determining NDP leadership. "It's a question of who has the fewest enemies in the party," he says. "The point it, that after all the shenanigans and the resignation of the leader, you would think they would rally around and make the best of it. They have certainly circled the wagons. The only problem is that they're aiming their guns in at themselves...It's pretty brutal." BCR

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