Manitoba Liberals take former NDP premier Greg Selinger’s seat in byelection

Lamont won a byelection Tuesday in the St. Boniface constituency in Winnipeg — a seat that had been held by the NDP since 1999. (Photo: Dougald Lamont/Twitter)

WINNIPEG — Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont has won a seat in the legislature, giving his party enough seats for official status and the funding that comes with it.

Lamont won a byelection Tuesday in the St. Boniface constituency in Winnipeg — a seat that had been held by the NDP since 1999.

Lamont, who is 49, took over the Liberal leadership last October and has worked to rebuild the struggling party, which hasn’t had the four seats required for official party status for two decades.

The result is a blow for the New Democrats, who lost power in 2016 and are the official Opposition with 12 of the 57 legislature seats.

The NDP ran Blandine Tona, an activist making her first foray into politics.

The governing Progressive Conservatives’ candidate, Mamadou Ka, was running in fourth place behind the Green Party’s Francoise Therrien Vrignon as results continued to come in late Tuesday.

The St. Boniface seat had been vacant since March, when former NDP premier Greg Selinger resigned.