CALGARY — A tight and sometimes nasty political race is coming to an end in Calgary, where incumbent Naheed Nenshi looks likely to be re-elected as mayor for a third term.
With about half of polls reporting, Nenshi is headed toward beating Calgary lawyer Bill Smith by a significant margin.
The affable Nenshi, who was the first Muslim mayor of a major North American city, gained a national profile with his stewardship of the city through the devastating floods of 2013 and by winning the 2014 World Mayor Prize.
But in this campaign he was accused of arrogance and being difficult to work with, an accusation he shrugged off by suggesting if he wanted to be universally loved, “I would have been a pet groomer.”
Smith said Calgarians were frustrated by high taxes, excessive spending by the city and a continued downturn in the energy sector, and suggested Nenshi had been avoiding those problems.
However, voters appeared to have stuck with the mayor, though not as strongly as they had in 2013, when he won with 73 per cent of the vote.
Elsewhere in the province, Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson handily won a second term, while incumbents also fared well in other Alberta cities.
Chris Spearman was re-elected in Lethbridge, as was Ted Clugston in Medicine Hat, Bill Given in Grande Prairie, and Tara Veer in Red Deer.
One of the few places where an incumbent was not running for re-election was the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray. Melissa Blake, who had been mayor since 2004, did not run again and will be replaced by Don Scott, a former provincial Conservative cabinet minister.
Blake had been praised for her grace under pressure after a devastating wildfire swept through the city in 2016 and also advocated for more housing and expanded infrastructure when Fort McMurray boomed before the last oil downturn.