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This article was published 18/3/2017 (1279 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba NDP will choose a new leader in September using largely the same rules it employed in a 2015 contest that saw Greg Selinger survive a leadership challenge.

A "compromise" motion put forward by a committee of party stalwarts failed to garner the necessary two-thirds majority at a policy convention in Winnipeg on Saturday.

Also failing to receive enough votes were a pair of motions that would have steered the party towards a form of one-member-one-vote leadership selection process.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS NDP members vote on various party motions during conference at the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre Saturday. March 18, 2017

Robert Ziegler, a former UFCW Local 832 president who chaired the leadership section of the meeting, predicted the result part way through the day when he observed that it was unlikely that any resolution charting a new course on leadership selection would carry the day.

He made the comment after a series of votes that made it clear that the room was too divided to reach any significant consensus.

Much of the day was dominated by procedural wrangling that, at times, caused frustration among the 563 registered delegates.

"We have too many rules and not enough action," a delegate said at one point.

"This whole thing is turning into a circus," said another after the latest in a series of standing votes was called. A standing vote is held when the result is too close to decide by a show of hands.

The result of about five hours of debate means organized labour will play a significant role in electing the NDP's next leader. Manitoba Federation of Labour president Kevin Rebeck said Saturday that organized labour was allowed 530 convention spots in 2015, but sent 320 delegates.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Former MLA Bidhu Ja speaks to NDP party members before party motions are voted on during the provincial party conference at the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre Saturday. March 18, 2017

One significant change from 2015, when Greg Selinger narrowly survived a leadership challenge from Theresa Oswald (then-Thompson MLA Steve Ashton finished third), is the institution of a 90-day cutoff in membership sales prior to the leadership convention. In the last contest, membership sales were cut off just 30 days before convention.

Early in the day, interim NDP leader Flor Marcelino called for party unity.

"Sisters and brothers, fellow New Democrats, we owe it to the people of Manitoba, especially the most vulnerable, to take (the Pallister) government to task together, act together and be united," she said.

NDP president Ovide Mercredi also urged unity early in the day. "It didn’t do us any favours to have a divided party and a divided government. That is common knowledge," he said.

Mercredi, a one-time national grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations, did not seek re-election. Former party secretary David Woodbury will succeed him after defeating Zita Somakoko, a Winnipeg human resources consultant, in a convention vote on Saturday.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Former Thompson MLA Steve Ashton at NDP convention Saturday, would not confirm or deny that he would be seeking the provincial party leadership for a third time.

The next NDP leader – succeeding Selinger who stepped down last April – will be announced at a leadership convention in Winnipeg Sept. 16-17.

So far only one candidate has declared their intention of running – Michelle McHale, a union activist, who helped organize the Pride parade last year in Steinbach. Fort Rouge MLA Wab Kinew says he is assembling a campaign team, although he has not yet formally declared his candidacy. Several other prominent party members have said they aren't ruling out a run.

Meanwhile, former longtime Thompson MLA Steve Ashton would not say, when asked outright Saturday, whether he would vie for the leadership for a third time. He lost to Greg Selinger in 2009 and finished third to Selinger and Oswald in 2015. Many within the NDP believe that he will run for the top job again.

"I can predict there will be an Ashton running for an NDP leadership," he joked, referring to the fact his daughter Niki Ashton is vying to become the federal party leader.

Ashton then joked that he may let his intentions be known via Twitter.

"It won’t be at 4 o’clock in the morning, though," he said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s penchant for nocturnal tweeting.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca