alberta general election, 1986

The 21st general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada, was held on May 8, 1986 to elect members of the Alberta legislature. Peter Lougheed, who had created the modern Alberta Progressive Conservatives, led it to power in 1971, and served as premier of Alberta for 14 years, retired from politics in 1985. The PC Party elected Donald Getty as its new leader. Getty was not able to gain the confidence of Albertans as Lougheed had, and the party's popular vote fell by ten percentage points. The PCs were still, however, able to win a fifth term in government, with over half the votes in the province, and 61 of the 83 seats in the legislature. The New Democratic Party, now led by Ray Martin, was able to make itself the focus of opposition to the PC government, winning almost 30% of the vote, and 16 seats in the legislature (up from two in the 1982 election.) The Liberal Party of Nick Taylor returned to the legislature for the first time since 1967 with four seats. Two seats were won by former Social Credit members who had formed the Representative Party of Alberta after winning re-election in 1982 as independents. Western Canada Concept, which had won almost 12% of the vote in 1982, collapsed, under the leadership of Jack Ramsay, who would later serve as a Reform Party of Canada Member of Parliament.

owspan="2"\|Party	rowspan="2"\|Party Leader	rowspan="2"\|# of candidates	colspan="3"\|Seats	colspan="3"\|Popular Vote
lign="center"\|Previous	align="center"\|After	align="center"\|% Change	align="center"\|#	align="center"\|%	align="center"\|Change
Progressive Conservative	Donald Getty	align="right"\| 83	align="right"\| 75	align="right"\| 61	align="right"\| -18.7%	align="right"\| 366,783	align="right"\| 51.40%	align="right"\| -10.88%
New Democratic	Ray Martin	align="right"\| 83	align="right"\| 2	align="right"\| 16	align="right"\| +700%	align="right"\| 208,561	align="right"\| 29.22%	align="right"\| +10.47%
Liberal	Nick Taylor	align="right"\| 63	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| 4	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 87,239	align="right"\| 12.22%	align="right"\| +10.41%
Representative		align="right"\| 46	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| 2	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| 36,656	align="right"\| 5.15%	align="right"\| n.a.
Independent		align="right"\| 20	align="right"\| 2	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -100%	align="right"\| 6,134	align="right"\| 0.86%	align="right"\| -3.01%
Western Canada Concept	Jack Ramsay	align="right"\|20	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 4,615	align="right"\| 0.65%	align="right"\| -3.01%
Confederation of Regions		align="right"\| 6	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| 2,866	align="right"\| 0.40%	align="right"\| n.a.
Heritage		align="right"\| 6	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| 6.01	align="right"\| 0.08%	align="right"\| n.a.
Communist		align="right"\| 6	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 199	align="right"\| 0.03%	align="right"\| -0.01%
Total		333	79	83	-	713,654	100.00%
align="center" colspan="9"\|Source: Elections Alberta

Notes: "Previous" refers to to standings at previous election, not to standings in the Legislature at dissolution. n.a. = not applicable - the party was not recognized in the previous election

Alberta General Election, 1986

See also