Justin Trudeau’s Liberals will form a minority government after Monday’s election. Here’s what media organizations around the world are saying about it.

New York Times (U.S.)

....Yet on Monday, Mr. Trudeau’s government was reduced to a minority. His party lost the popular vote to the Conservatives. Canada’s electoral map is now disturbingly divided between the Liberal-dominated east of the country, and the Conservative-dominated west. Mr. Trudeau will likely depend on the support of the other parties to keep his hold on power.

What happened to Canada’s progressive idol? The short answer is that Mr. Trudeau came to power when Canadian politics was dominated by issues like deficit spending, electoral reform and whether a local Conservative candidate peed in a cup on television. At the time, he presented a happy contrast to incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who seemed stodgy, cynical and petty by comparison. Mr. Trudeau’s campaign promised “sunny ways” and at a time when the future looked rosy for Canada, voters responded warmly to the change of tone.

But the world has grown much scarier and more uncertain since the 2015 election. And Mr. Trudeau has done little to convince voters that he is the right man to manage it. ... Given the domestic and global factors that influenced this election, no doubt many Liberals will see securing a minority government as a success. This is the victory of low expectations. Mr. Trudeau will now struggle pass budgets and maintain confidence in the House of Commons in a divided country.

The only factor saving Mr. Trudeau from a disastrous outcome on Monday was that none of the other parties convinced the electorate that they were better equipped to deal with the future that lies ahead. That was their failure. But Canadians should expect to be back at the ballot box before too long. And if you were a Canadian voter suddenly troubled by such uncertainty, honestly, is this the guy you would pick again?

The Guardian (U.K.)

Lofty words aside, Canada’s 43rd election campaign capped a particularly bruising year for Trudeau, who rose to power in 2014 as an outspoken progressive.

...

Yet in defeating Conservative party, the Liberals have instead called into question the direction of conservativism in Canada. The Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer, himself a social conservative, was decidedly uncomfortable discussing issues of abortion, same sex marriage and climate change. ... And the election was also a veritable death knell for the country’s fledging far right party, the People’s Party of Canada. Its leader, former Conservative MP Maxime Bernier, adopted the tone and substance of Trumpian nativism, decrying multiculturalism and promising to decrease immigration. Formed just over a year ago, the PPC ran a nearly full slate of candidates, yet failed to win a single seat.

BBC (U.K)

Mr Trudeau had an exceptionally long honeymoon by most political standards - but his popularity has clearly dimmed with the Canadian public.

...

The Liberals were never going to sweep ... deeply Conservative regions. Even at the height of their popularity in 2015 they only held a handful of seats in those two provinces.

But now Alberta and Saskatchewan have turned solidly away from Mr Trudeau's party amid a sense in western Canada that its interests are not represented in Canada's capital of Ottawa.

Washington Post (U.S.)

The vote Monday capped an acrimonious contest dominated by scandal and personal attacks. Polls throughout the six-week campaign showed Trudeau’s Liberals in a dead heat with Scheer’s Conservatives, a competition that would have seemed far-fetched when Trudeau came to power four years ago, riding a wave of support reminiscent of the enthusiasm for his father, longtime Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a generation earlier.

But unkept promises and scandal blunted the telegenic Liberal leader’s prospects. He cast himself as a steward of the environment but bought an oil pipeline last year for $3.4 billion. His former attorney general, the first Indigenous woman in that role, accused him and his senior aides this year of improperly pressuring her to interfere in the criminal prosecution of a Quebec-based construction giant. Last month, images and a video of a younger Trudeau in brownface and blackface damaged his reputation as a champion of diversity. He apologized, repeatedly.

The Times of India (India)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will remain in power but with a minority government that will require the support of a smaller left-leaning party, official results showed on Monday after a hard-fought battle in which he was dogged by scandals.

The Liberals had won or were leading in 156 out of 338 seats as of midnight Tuesday according to Elections Canada. That put the Liberals far short of the 170 seats needed for a second straight majority government.

Trudeau, who took power in 2015 as a charismatic figure promising “sunny ways,” saw his popularity drop over old photos of him in blackface and his handling of a corporate corruption case. He will now have to rely on the New Democratic Party (NDP) to push through key legislation.

News24 (South Africa)

At Conservative Party of Canada headquarters in Regina, Saskatchewan, supporters of Andrew Scheer are left disappointed after results show Justin Trudeau can stay on as Prime Minister.

South China Morning Post (South China)

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will remain in power after a nail-biter of a general election.

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Trudeau’s Liberal party was projected to win the most seats in the 338-seat Parliament, giving it the best chance to form the next government. However, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) said it would be a minority government, forced to rely on an opposition party to stay in power. Projections indicate that the Conservatives, led by Andrew Scheer will be the second-largest party, followed by the Quebec regional party Bloc Québécois in third.

Still, the results were a victory for Trudeau, whose clean-cut image took a hit after old photos of him in blackface and brownface surfaced last month.

Le Monde (France)

After four years in power and burdened by many scandals, Justin Trudeau still managed to win his bet on Monday. According to projections from public broadcasting media, a few hours after voting polls closed, the Liberal party obtained a second term in Canada’s parliamentary elections, but this time without the majority that welcomed him in 2015. (Translated from French)

CNBC (U.S.)

A minority government in the 338-seat House of Commons will leave Trudeau in a weakened position and needing the support of left-leaning opposition parties to push through key pieces of legislation.

Ahead of the vote, polls showed a neck-and-neck race across the country as Trudeau, who took power as a charismatic figure promising “sunny ways,” battled Conservative leader Andrew Scheer for the chance to form the next government.

Trudeau, 47, the Liberal Party leader, was endorsed by former U.S. President Barack Obama in the final stretch of the campaign and is viewed as one of the last remaining progressive leaders among the world’s major democracies.

But he was shaken during the campaign by a blackface scandal and has been dogged by criticism of his handling of a corruption case involving a major Canadian construction company. Trudeau, the son of the late Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau, has also had to overcome a sense of fatigue with his government.

The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

Canadian voters have handed Justin Trudeau a second term as Prime Minister, though his centre-left Liberal Party lost seats and will go into minority government.

Trudeau’s victory came despite a drop in popularity since his landslide triumph in 2015 and the emergence of several photos during the election campaign of him posing in “brown face” as a young man.

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer was unable to generate enough enthusiasm among voters to win the seats required to form government.

Los Angeles Times (U.S.)

After a six-week campaign that raised vital questions about the cultural identity of Canada and difficult questions about the personal identity of its prime minister, voters here gave Justin Trudeau a second term — though they chastened the Liberal Party leader by depriving him of the majority in Parliament he enjoyed the last four years.

At the same time, the broad contours of potential new conflicts in Canadian politics emerged.

The rise of the Bloc Quebecois that drained support from Trudeau’s party in the province signals a reenergized nationalism in Quebec, a condition that off and on for a century or more has been an important but difficult factor in Canadian federal politics. The simultaneous rise of the New Democratic Party signals that politics here may take a sharp left turn if Trudeau and Singh come to their expected agreement that would allow the prime minister to retain power.

Osobe Waberi is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star’s radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @OsobeWaberi

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