Canadians Move Right, Elect New Leadership

Liberal Party Out After 12-Year Run

TORONTO, Jan. 23 -- Canadian voters, saying they were fed up with financial scandals and ready for a change, ended the 12-year run of the ruling Liberal Party on Monday, ousting Prime Minister Paul Martin in favor of a Conservative Party likely to steer a path closer to the United States.

Nearly complete returns in the national election gave a strong victory to Conservative leader StephenHarper, 46, a political strategist from western Canada who jokes about being dull. He shrugged off Martin's accusations that he is too cozy with U.S. conservatives for liberal-leaning Canada, the same accusations that crippled his candidacy in 2004.

But Harper fell short of winning a clear majority in the 308-seat House of Commons. He will need to compromise with opponents to form a government and further his agenda of scaling back social programs, cutting taxes and winnowing the power of the federal government.

The Liberal Party will swap roles with the Conservatives, becoming the largest opposition party. That change is a stinging rebuff of the party, which has regularly dominated Canadian politics since the country's birth, and for Martin, 67, who has been prime minister for only 25 months. Canadians' pride in clean government was shaken by a kickback scandal in the Liberal Party, and by their suspicion that the Liberals had grown cocky in office, they said repeatedly in public opinion surveys.

Martin conceded at midnight. He declared that he would resign from the party leadership, but would keep his seat in Parliament. In a 16-minute speech, Martin vowed that the Liberal Party would survive the setback.

"Ours will be a strong opposition," he said. "I am so proud to be a liberal. We have a right to be proud. We will not lose faith. We will not lose hope."

The final makeup of the Parliament could be affected by recounts in a few districts with close results. But the returns showed the Liberals dropping to 103 seats from 133. The Conservatives captured 125 seats, more than the 98 seats they hold in the current Parliament but far from the 155-seat majority some Conservative strategists had dreamed of winning.

"We showed Canadians tonight that we are truly a national party from coast to coast. We drew in the whole country," Rona Ambrose, a Conservative member of Parliament, said as the returns began to come in.

A step to the political right will be a change for Canada, which has grown increasingly more liberal on social and political issues than its southern neighbor, to the point that Martin attacked Harper as being "pro-American" in the campaign.

The Conservative Party and its political predecessors have in the past championed such positions as outlawing abortion and banning gay marriage, views that polls show are inconsistent with the more tolerant tilt of Canadians.

"I think we have to give it a try. But I am very afraid that it will be too far right," said Florence Koven, 72, emerging from the polls after voting -- reluctantly, she said -- for the Conservative Party. "The unknown always concerns you. Mr. Harper says he is a changed man; we'll see how much he has changed."

Harper, who lost in 2004 when Martin's Liberals portrayed him as too close to U.S. right-wing politics, studiously avoided discussing social issues in this campaign, concentrating instead on his fiscal plans and his pledge to end government corruption.