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And then there were five.

The race for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party has another contestant.

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Sandra Jansen, PC MLA for Calgary-North West, ended the worst kept secret in Alberta politics on Wednesday by announcing her candidacy.

“I am thrilled to join this race because I am excited about the future of the PC party,” said Jansen in an emailed news release. “I am running because I want to build a modern, forward-looking team that will take the Progressive Conservatives into the future.”

That was the extent of her formal launch. There was no news conference, no gaggle of reporters in a hotel conference room peppering her with questions.

Instead, Jansen met with journalists for one-on-one chats wherever was most convenient for the media. I met her in a Starbucks near the legislature.

I imagine Jansen kept things low-key because she knew there wouldn’t be many journalists interested in covering the launch of yet another candidate in the leadership contest for the third-place party in the legislature.