Jagmeet Singh, the leader of Canada’s New Democrats Party (NDP), has won his first seat in parliament after a by-election bid in British Columbia.

The party premier secured 38% of votes in a closely-watched race in Burnaby, east of Vancouver.

Mr Singh, 40, is the first ethnic minority to lead a major federal party in the country.

His win comes ahead of national elections in October and gives Mr Singh the chance to run for prime minister.

“Friends, we made history today,” he told supporters after learning the results. “Guess what? We just told a lot of kids out there that yes, you can.”

His new seat, Burnaby-South, opened up after fellow NDP member Kennedy Stewart resigned to become mayor of Vancouver.

The town’s election race made headlines in January after Liberal candidate Karen Wang stepped down after making remarks about Mr Singh that some said amounted to racism.

Ms Wang wrote a post on the website WeChat in which she said that as the only Chinese candidate in the race she stood a good chance of winning, and pointed out Mr Singh’s Indian descent.

Announcing her resignation, she said her “choice of words wasn’t well-considered and didn’t reflect my intent”, but she denied that they were racist.

Mr Singh is a practising Sikh and former legislator, and became leader of the centre-left party in 2017 despite no experience of federal politics. During his bid for premiership, a video of his reaction to an angry heckler at a campaign rally went viral.

Monday’s victory is a boost for his leadership, which had been undermined by poor polling, fundraising difficulties, and internal clashes.

The NDP as never held power and is currently the third place party in Canada’s Parliament, holding 40 of 443 seats. A quarter of its lawmakers who won seats in the 2015 election have either resigned or announced they are not running again in October.

In an interview with CTV last month, former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said “it would be extremely difficult for Mr. Singh to stick around” if his parliamentary bid failed.

Despite success in Burnaby, the NDP failed to secure seats in Canada’s two other by-elections. Liberal contender Rachel Bendayan ousted the party from Montreal’s Outremont constituency.

The Conservatives also held onto seat in the Ontario constituency of York-Simcoe.

Source: Read Full Article