Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives are test-driving a Ford less than three months before an election.

In a stunning upset Saturday following a heated ballot dispute, Doug Ford — brother of late Toronto mayor Rob Ford — was chosen to lead the beleaguered party into the June 7 campaign.

The one-term Toronto city councillor and 2014 runner-up to Mayor John Tory bested favourite Christine Elliott, a lawyer and former MPP making her third attempt at the party leadership.

“Tonight we took the first step in defeating Kathleen Wynne,” Ford told media and supporters at 10:15 p.m., flanked by his family.

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He acknowledged “many of the party members feel like they’ve been let down with this process,” and added: “We have a lot to do in a very short amount of time.”

But Ford promised, “I will get our party back on track. We will put a platform forward that will speak to every Ontarian.”

He praised leadership rival Caroline Mulroney and gave a special shout-out to competitor Tanya Granic Allen, whom he called “amazing.” Ford also had praise for Elliott, but said she had not conceded victory.

An emailed statement from Elliott’s campaign early Sunday pointed to “serious irregularities” in the leadership contest. It stated that Elliott had won both the popular vote and the majority of ridings, and that fewer than 150 points separated her from Ford in the final calculation.

The leadership vote used preferential ballots and a system of points assigned by riding.

The statement from Elliott alleged that thousands of party members were assigned to incorrect ridings, in some cases hundreds of kilometres away.

“I will stand up for these members and plan to investigate the extent of this discrepancy,” the statement said.

Ford’s win came after a tumultuous leadership event on Saturday. Hundreds of party members, who paid $50 each to attend, had waited for hours at a Markham convention centre to learn who their new leader was, only to be sent home after the vote was too close to call.

“There is a review (of ballots) underway,” PC leadership committee chair Hartley Lefton said around 7:30 p.m., addressing a crowd that had thinned as the afternoon dragged on.

The controversy “needs to be resolved, as it may have an impact on electoral votes,” he added, drawing shouts and boos as he urged the crowd to leave since the party no longer had access to the hotel ballroom, which was booked for a wedding Sunday.

At issue were the postal codes of around 1,300 ballots, which could have affected the complicated riding points system the Tories use to elect their leaders.

Furious Ford supporters shouted “bulls---” and “shame” as Lefton spoke, because they felt the party establishment was trying to steal the leadership from their candidate.

Former MPP Frank Klees, the runner-up to Tim Hudak in the 2009 leadership contest, fumed that “this is not a good night” for the party.

“I am disheartened. I am embarrassed by what is happening here tonight,” said Klees, a Ford supporter, who lashed out at Elliott’s camp for apparently contesting the results.

“It was Christine Elliott’s camp who refused — of all of the four candidates — to extend the voting by a week,” said the former cabinet minister, referring to an injunction application for an extension that was denied by a judge Friday night.

A senior party member said of the continued chaos, as well as the spectre of a Ford win: “I hope Kathleen Wynne is getting hammered tonight — she should be celebrating.”

At a Liberal rally on Sunday, Wynne said she wished Ford well “even though we don’t agree on all things.”

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Liberal campaign co-chair Deb Matthews, who was at the leadership event all day, said “keeping people in the dark for that long was just unconscionable. They should have come out much, much earlier and said what was going on. That just was very disrespectful.”

The last-minute tussling over votes was a stunning development for the PC party. Speakers earlier in the afternoon had urged unity given all the tumult since Patrick Brown stepped down as leader just six weeks ago, after being accused of sexual improprieties involving young women.

Elliott had been perceived as the front-runner over Ford, the 53-year-old married father of four daughters who has spent most of his career running the family business Deco Labels. He left the firm in 2010 to run for his younger brother’s old seat in Etobicoke North, and served one term on city council.

During his PC leadership campaign — he was the first to announce his candidacy and did so from the basement of his mother’s Etobicoke home — Ford wooed social conservatives by promising to review the province’s sex education curriculum, and wondered why teenage girls don’t require permission notes from their parents if they want to get an abortion.

At his campaign launch, Ford said he opposed Ontario’s carbon tax, pledged to keep taxes low and said it was time for the PC party to “present Ontarians with a compassionate and responsible vision.”

For Elliott, 62, Saturday’s result was yet another disappointment in her bid to lead the party. The lawyer, former Ontario patient ombudsman and widowed mother of three lost in 2015 to Brown, and in 2009 to Hudak.

Earlier Saturday, party members gathered in hope of a fresh start with a new leader at the helm.

Interim PC leader Vic Fedeli, who took over the day after Brown quit and who said he rooted out the “rot” left by the former chief, emphasized that the party must heal quickly after a divisive contest.

“Our work does not end today,” said Fedeli, who was given a standing ovation as he went onstage to the tune of David Bowie’s “Heroes.”

“Please, do not let the small differences that are inevitable in a leadership distract us from our shared purpose,” said the popular Nipissing MPP.

“Make no mistake, the Ontario PC Party is strong, the Ontario PC Party is united, the Ontario PC Party is ready to win and get to work making life better for all Ontario families.”

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Brown, whom Fedeli ejected from the Tory caucus and who now sits as an Independent MPP, was nowhere to be seen at the weekend confab. Friends told the Star he was out of the country.

While there remains some sympathy toward Brown within the party, a 10-day aborted comeback attempt for his old job that ended two weeks ago left many feeling sour.

Some felt Brown was using his bid to reclaim the party leadership as a way to clear his name, lending a soap opera quality to the contest.

Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s United Conservative party, told his Ontario counterparts in a keynote speech Saturday that they must come together to beat the Liberals in the election this spring.

“Are you ready to unite?” said Kenney, who was instrumental in bringing together the Alberta PC and Wildrose parties to try to unseat Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP government.

“Let’s be honest, there’s no point in sugar-coating this. You’ve been through a very tough couple of months — perhaps the toughest time in the history of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario,” he said.

“You’ve gone through weeks of anxiety and adversity, but I am certain that you will overcome this time of trial.”

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