Ryan Meili isn’t ruling out running for the NDP leadership, but he’s not yet ready to commit. The MLA-elect is focused more on preparing for Monday, his first session in the provincial legislature.

“Session starts on March 6 — that’s Monday,” Meili told CTV Morning Live on Friday, less than a day after his victory in the Saskatoon Meewasin byelection. “My focus is much more on the latter, immediate concern.”

Meili, a doctor in Saskatoon, beat out four other candidates, including the Saskatchewan Party’s Brent Penner, on Thursday to take the Saskatoon Meewasin constituency.

He had 54 per cent of the vote — or 2,666 votes — with all ballot boxes set to be counted Thursday night reporting, while second-place Penner had 40 per cent — or 1,962 votes. The remaining three candidates, the Liberal’s Darrin Lamoureux, the Progressive Conservative’s David Prokopchuk and the Green Party’s Shawn Setyo, had each earned fewer than four per cent.

One more ballot box — for absentee voting and from votes recorded at Saskatoon City Hospital — will be counted March 14, according to Elections Saskatchewan. The numbers as of Thursday night were unofficial.

Meili ran unsuccessfully for the Saskatchewan NDP leadership in 2009 and 2013. He was non-committal Thursday night on another run, and reiterated the stand Friday morning.

“We can consider those other things later down the road,” he said on CTV.

A leadership race is expected in June 2018.

The party lost their leader, Cam Broten, in the provincial election last April, with Trent Wotherspoon since taking over as interim leader.

Premier Brad Wall said Thursday he expects to see Meili lead the NDP.

“I think Ryan Meili is going to be the leader of the party,” Wall said. “He’s got a very high profile, and a good reputation in Saskatoon.”

Meili, the founder of Upstream, a group focused on health-care discussions within the context of social issues, campaigned against potential health-care and education cuts.

“This government is on the wrong track and people are frustrated with the cuts and mismanagement,” he said. “I think it’s a government that’s reached beyond its best-before date.”

Wall recently pegged the province’s deficit at $1.2 billion and said program cuts, unpaid days off for public workers, wage rollbacks, layoffs in health care and education, as well as tax increases are all potentially on the table.

His party now holds 49 of the 61 seats in the legislature. The NDP hold 11, and the remaining seat is an independent.

The Saskatoon Meewasin seat was left vacant after Saskatchewan Party MLA Roger Parent died in November, two weeks after he was diagnosed with cancer.

Nearly 5,000 votes were cast during the byelection, with a 40 per cent voter turnout, according to Thursday’s unofficial numbers.

--- with files from The Canadian Press