alberta general election, 1997

The 24th general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada, was held on March 11, 1997 to elect members of the Alberta legislature. Ralph Klein's second election as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party was considerably more successful than his first. The PC Party won over half the popular vote, and 63 of the 83 seats in the legislature for its eighth consecutive term in government. The Liberal Party of Grant Mitchell lost about 7% of the popular vote it had won in the 1993 election. The party's legislative caucus was reduced from 32 members to 18. Pam Barrett led the New Democratic Party back into the legislature with two seats (both in Edmonton), despite winning an even smaller share of the popular vote than in 1993. The Social Credit Party also re-emerged, but did not win any seats.

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	Ralph Klein	align="right"\| 83	align="right"\| 51	align="right"\| 63	align="right"\| +23.5%	align="right"\| 483,914	align="right"\| 51.17%	align="right"\| +6.68%
Liberal	Grant Mitchell	align="right"\| 83	align="right"\| 32	align="right"\| 18	align="right"\| -43.8%	align="right"\| 309,748	align="right"\| 32.75%	align="right"\| -6.98%
New Democratic	Pam Barrett	align="right"\| 77	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| 2	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 83,292	align="right"\| 8.81%	align="right"\| -2.20%
Social Credit	Randy Thorsteinson	align="right"\| 70	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 64,667	align="right"\| 6.884%	align="right"\| -4.43%
Natural Law		align="right"\| 16	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 1,303	align="right"\| 0.14%	align="right"\| -0.37%
Green		align="right"\| 7	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 1,039	align="right"\| 0.11%	align="right"\| -0.09%
Independent		align="right"\| 6	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 1,092	align="right"\| 0.11%	align="right"\| -0.82%
Forum		align="right"\| 4	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| 597	align="right"\| 0.06%	align="right"\| n.a.
Communist		align="right"\| 1	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 61	align="right"\| 0.01%	align="right"\| x
Total		347	83	83	-	945,713	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 x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote

Alberta General Election, 1997

See also