Another architect of the B.C. NDP’s disastrous election campaign has announced his resignation.

B.C. NDP party president Moe Sihota announced Saturday he is stepping down this fall, another shakeup in the provincial party after leader Adrian Dix announced his resignation on Wednesday.

article continues below

Sihota, who has been party president since 2009, will leave when his term ends in November.

A new president and new party executive will be elected at the NDP convention Nov. 15-17 in Vancouver.

The new president will have to oversee a leadership vote in 2014, as the party tries to rebuild after a devastating defeat to the Liberals in the May provincial election.

The party executive will decide on dates for the leadership race in the next few weeks, Sihota said.

Sihota, 58, said the party’s Achilles’ heel has long been a lack of confidence on issues of fiscal and economic growth.

In a statement, Dix praised Sihota’s “dedication, intelligence and good humour.”

“As president, he helped the party modernize its fundraising capacity and move forward in implementing a strong outreach plan involving the business community,” Dix said.

Sihota was first elected to the legislature as a New Democrat in 1986. He held cabinet posts in the NDP governments of premiers Mike Harcourt, Glen Clark and Ujjal Dosanjh in the 1990s but was either forced to resign or removed from cabinet three times over various controversies.

He left politics in 2001 before Gordon Campbell’s Liberals took power, and became a TV journalist and radio pundit.

Born in Duncan, Sihota has deep roots on Vancouver Island and in the province’s Sikh communities.