Ignatieff secures Liberal leadership as Rae bows out

OTTAWA — Michael Ignatieff has secured the federal Liberal leadership without a single vote being cast after his last remaining rival, longtime friend Bob Rae, bowed out of the contest.
Rae announced Tuesday that he’s dropping out for the good of the party.

He said Liberals must pull together to fight Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, accusing them of doing nothing to address the economic crisis.
He also blamed Harper for causing the current political showdown with a “fundamentally stupid economic statement.”
Rae offered his “full and unqualified support” to Ignatieff and predicted he will make a great prime minister.
“The Liberal party has known too much division in the past and I have no intention of pursuing a course that would hurt the party,” he said.
The move came hours after the Liberal national executive rejected Rae’s plea to find a faster way of giving all party members a vote for Stephane Dion’s replacement.
Rae’s decision clears the way for Ignatieff to be formally installed as the party’s interim leader on Dec. 17, after the executive goes through a limited consultation process.
Ignatieff, a Toronto MP and former Harvard academic, will then be acclaimed as the permanent leader at the party’s previously scheduled leadership convention in May in Vancouver.
The development also raises fresh questions about plans by the opposition coalition to bring down the Harper government after the Jan. 27 federal budget.
Rae said he still supports the coalition and wants to turf the Tories. He slammed Harper as a “divisive” leader, with no economic plan who doesn’t deserve the support of Parliament or Canadians.
But Ignatieff has been lukewarm to the coalition and has said he will wait to see the budget to decide what to do.
Rae had been under considerable pressure to get out of Ignatieff’s way and allow the party to quickly install a new leader well before the potential parliamentary showdown over the budget.
The budget vote could plunge the country into another election or see the Liberals attempt to replace Harper’s Conservatives with a Grit-NDP coalition, propped up by the Bloc Quebecois.
The pressure on Rae mounted Monday when Dion, who had intended to hang on until May, called for an accelerated process and vowed to resign as soon as a successor was chosen. It increased further when long-shot leadership contender Dominic LeBlanc bowed out of the race and threw his support to Ignatieff.
Ignatieff’s camp was pushing to have Dion’s replacement chosen by the national executive after consulting strictly with Liberal MPs and senators at a caucus meeting Wednesday. Ignatieff enjoys the lion’s share of support among caucus members.
But under pressure from Rae and grassroots members angry about having no say in the choice of leader, the executive agreed late Monday to expand the consultation to about 800 Liberals, including riding presidents and defeated candidates.
Rae’s camp concluded that the relatively elite group of Liberals would predominantly favour Ignatieff and that there was no point in Rae forcing a showdown under those conditions.
Although Rae urged his supporters to accept the decision without rancour, some are privately irate about what they see as an Ignatieff putsch.