CALGARY—Former Calgary city councillor and mayoral candidate Andre Chabot will seek the United Conservative Party nomination for the Calgary-East riding.

The riding largely covers the same area he represented as a city councillor for more than a decade.

“I’m back,” he said Tuesday.

Chabot was first elected as the councillor for Ward 10 in a 2005 byelection. He announced he would run for mayor in 2015, and he came a distant third in the 2017 race, which Mayor Naheed Nenshi won with 51.4 per cent of the vote.

Four other candidates are listed on the Elections Alberta website for the Calgary-East UCP nomination: Pradeep Singh, Robert O’Leary, Issa Mosa and Matthew Dirk.

Chabot said he has known UCP Leader Jason Kenney for years, making it easy for him to step into provincial politics.

“It’s kind of what I had planned when I first got into politics, starting at one level and possibly moving into other levels,” he said. “The next natural transition for me, I believe, was provincial.”

He said his plan was always to pursue a nomination in one of the Calgary ridings if his mayoral run wasn’t successful.

Other UCP nomination candidates have faced criticism recently over social media posts expressing extreme views.

Chabot said that isn’t where his focus lies heading into the nomination race.

“As much as I may want to weigh in on some of the discussions about some of the stances that they’ve taken, ultimately I’m there to represent the interests of the people, and in this case, the membership,” he said.

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