Just when Andrea Horwath thought she was safe, New Democrats are in open revolt against their leader.

Happily for Horwath, the regicide attempt is in a neighbouring province, not Ontario: The knives came out for Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger this week as five dissident ministers quit cabinet and called for his head.

It’s unprecedented for so many Manitoba ministers to rebel against a sitting premier — who still wields the power to make or break careers. It’s equally unprecedented for everyone in Ontario’s NDP caucus to remain so publicly united — given that Horwath has so little leverage over them.

But with all that spilled blood in Manitoba, Horwath had best not let her guard down at Queen’s Park. Ontario’s NDP leader faces a leadership trial of her own next week in Toronto, when party delegates will pass judgment on her June election performance.

Horwath initially hailed the campaign as a triumph of messaging and strategizing. But as the defeat sunk in — the NDP lost its grip on the balance of power by handing the minority Liberals a majority — Horwath has had second thoughts about her third-place finish.

Losing three Toronto ridings was painful. Getting out-campaigned by the Liberals — in style and substance, on poverty and pensions — produced a loss of face. Now, Horwath has done an about face.

In place of hubris, humility. In quest of absolution, contrition.

“I have some things to learn from the past few years, and I want to talk very frankly with you about that,” Horwath told nearly 300 activists at a recent heart to heart with the NDP’s provincial council.

Horwath proclaimed a housecleaning of her senior advisers, proudly deploying her secret weapon at the council meeting: She formally introduced Michael Balagus, her new chief of staff, a 58-year-old party veteran who, years ago, held similar posts for Selinger and Manitoba’s previous NDP premier, Gary Doer.

“You can expect to be hearing from him,” Horwath told the party’s brain trust in her speech, as Balagus listened quietly from the audience.

His credentials and professionalism have soothed a restive grassroots unhappy with the opportunistic tone of Horwath’s spring campaign. On the other hand, the palace revolt in Winnipeg may have diminished some of the fabled Manitoba magic inherent in the Balagus brand.

But there’s a key difference between the NDP experiences in Manitoba and Ontario — beyond the fact that one party is in power and one is mired in opposition: Selinger is under attack for raising the provincial sales tax by a percentage point to bankroll badly needed infrastructure in his province; Horwath took precisely the opposite approach, badmouthing any sales tax increases in the last two election campaigns.

While Horwath’s anti-tax populism antagonized progressives — who don’t want New Democrats to merely echo Tory attack lines — it leaves her less exposed to the kind of retribution Selinger now faces.

There are other factors working in Horwath’s favour as her leadership review looms next week:

Time heals most wounds. A party that was seething with anger five months ago has calmed down as Horwath has made amends.

The house of labour is badly divided in Ontario. The Canadian Labour Congress is still mad at Horwath for faltering on the pensions issue during the election, as is Sid Ryan of the Ontario Federation of Labour. But the United Steelworkers support Horwath (the inside joke is they wouldn’t waver even if she proposed halving the minimum wage!), as does OPSEU, representing public servants.

Horwath can legitimately claim to have more than doubled the party’s seat total since becoming leader five years ago, while pushing up its popular vote (even as the Liberals regained their majority thanks to the NDP’s ill-timed election trigger).

Balagus is cautioning unhappy delegates that, by firing a warning shot across the bow, they might shoot themselves in the foot. A protest vote could overshoot if too many people try to hobble Horwath. (The traditional benchmark vote is 66 per cent, below which a leader looks wounded; she received 76.4 per cent in a 2012 review.)

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Finally, there is no obvious successor. Olivia Chow equivocated about running for the NDP leadership on the night she lost Toronto’s mayoralty, but she is not seen as the saviour she once was. Nor would Horwath’s 2009 leadership race rivals have much traction.

Post-election, the NDP is demoralized and millions of dollars in debt. Little wonder there isn’t a lone lineup of pretenders to the third-party throne — unlike in Manitoba, where New Democrats are tuning in to the game of thrones.

Martin Regg Cohn’s Ontario politics column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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