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Alberta Politics

Luke Suvanto wins UCP nomination in Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview, Robin Kurpjuweit joins Cypress-Medicine Hat UCP race

As things begin to wrap up for the holidays, this is probably going to be one of the final candidate nomination updates of 2022.

The last scheduled candidate selection meeting was held last night and saw Luke Suvanto defeat Felix Amenaghawon and Lana Palmer to win the United Conservative Party nomination in Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview.

Suvanto is President of the federal Conservative electoral district association in Edmonton-Manning and is a leader with the Fort Road Victory Church.

The riding has been represented by NDP MLA Deron Bilous since 2012. Bilous announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election after 3-terms as MLA. Teacher and past NDP president Peggy Wright won the nomination to succeed Bilous as the NDP candidate.

Robin Kurpjuweit enters UCP contest in Cypress-Medicine Hat

Cypress County Councillor Robin Kurpjuweit announced his plans to seek the UCP nomination in Cypress-Medicine Hat. Kurpjuweit was first elected to county council in 2017. He joins former Western Standard VP of Operations James Finkbeiner in the nomination contest.

The riding is currently represented by Independent MLA Drew Barnes, who was elected in 2012 and 2015 as a Wildrose Party candidate and in 2019 under the UCP banner. He was kicked out of the UCP Caucus in May 2021, but unlike his colleague Todd Loewen, he has not rejoined the governing conservative caucus. It is looking increasingly like Barnes won’t rejoin the UCP.

The NDP are expected to hold a nomination meeting in the new year. School trustee Cathy Hogg and former teacher Tim Gruber are seeking the NDP nomination in Cypress-Medicine Hat. Dustin Cartwright is the nominated Green Party candidate.

That’s (almost) a wrap for 2022

While there are no more scheduled nomination votes in the final days of 2022, there are still outstanding UCP nomination results in ridings where acclamations are expected (Edmonton-Rutherford and Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin) and the results of the recount of the UCP nomination in Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul has not been released. The vote was sent for a recount at the party’s provincial office after former MLA Scott Cyr finished one vote ahead of incumbent MLA David Hanson.

With less than six months until the next election, the Alberta NDP have nominated candidates in 69 of Alberta’s 87 ridings. The UCP have candidates named in 50 ridings and the Green Party has 22 candidates. The Alberta Party has nominated 3 candidates and the Liberal Party has one.

Thank you to everyone who has followed my nomination updates and shared information about who is in the running. I expect it will be a busy few months of nominations ahead of the May 2023 election, so please keep on sharing your local nomination updates with me.

Don’t forget to vote in the Best of Alberta Politics 2022 survey. Voting is open until December 22 and I will announce the winners shortly after that.

And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the Daveberta Substack. I’m have some fun and exciting news to share about the Substack early in the new year, so don’t miss out.

Thanks.

Dave

One reply on “Luke Suvanto wins UCP nomination in Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview, Robin Kurpjuweit joins Cypress-Medicine Hat UCP race”

How much are you willing to wager that the last two ridings to hold nominations for either main party won’t be Grande Prairie & Grande Prairie-Wapiti? Certainly both NDP constituency associations up here are virtually moribund, and have been since the redistribution that gave GP its own urban riding. As for the UCP constituency associations, I suspect those nominations will be uncontested, unless either Toews or Allard decide not to run again.

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