The candidates for the Buffalo Party, the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Progressive Conservatives (PC) weighed in on the results after Monday night’s election.
Phil Zajac, who was running for the Buffalo Party in their first election, finished second with 1,689 votes – the most for any Buffalo candidate in the province. It was a bitter-sweet result for Zajac, because he expected to win.
But the party has been around for a few months, and they finished second in three other constituencies, including nearby Cannington.
“I believe most news agencies thought we would get two per cent of the vote or less, and I think we surprised a lot of people at how we did across the province,” he said.
People told him they’re concerned about the future of the area, with the phase-out of conventional coal-fired power. Zajac said he shares those concerns.
“I’m concerned about the future of coal and power in Estevan. I think it’s in real trouble and I don’t know what the future’s going to hold for us here,” he said.
Zajac also took a leadership role with the Buffalo Party during the campaign. He represented the party at the provincial debate in Regina days after the Estevan constituency candidates’ forum on Oct. 13.
“I thought it was a great opportunity for me to voice Estevan’s concerns, and I look forward to that into the future,” he said.
Zajac predicted he would continue to be involved with the Buffalo Party, and will continue to support the party moving forward.
“The best part about politics is all of the people that you meet and all of the people who care about their community. There’s a lot of people here who feel the same way I do, and unfortunately we just didn’t have enough votes tonight.”
The NDP has had tough times in the Estevan constituency since 1999, and this election didn't bring any positive changes for them. NDP candidate for Estevan Seth Lendrum said that while they always aim for the best, they realized that they couldn't win every seat.
"Goals for me were just a matter of how many votes I could pull in. Province-wide, we were just focusing on trying to get as many seats as we could to change the balance of power," Lendrum said.
With the emergence of the Buffalo Party, which speaks a lot to the region's current problems, the NDP was pushed to the third position and came just a few dozen votes ahead of the Progressive Conservatives.
Lendrum said that he expected to see higher numbers, but he knew that the Buffalo Party would pull away some votes.
"I knew it was a very strong opponent just due to how Estevan is very heavily invested into oil and coal," Lendrum said.
It was Lendrum's first time running in an election.
"It was a great learning curve. It showed that there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scene. It teaches you how to talk to people, that's what I found," Lendrum said.
He added that this experience helped him to become more confident. While currently residing in Weyburn, he used every opportunity to get out and meet the electorate.
He did a bit of door-knocking and also communicated with the electorate over the phone and distributed pamphlets. He said there was an "OK" amount of support.
Sopp said the results for the constituency and across the province were a bit disappointing as they expected to see more votes coming their way. In the Estevan constituency, the PCs attracted just under 330 votes this year, coming in fourth.
“I was expecting it to be a little bit higher just by what my feedback was from everybody. But it was a good run,” Sopp said.
Sopp spent the night of the elections at the party’s office in Regina, watching the ballots coming in alongside other PC candidates.
“Everybody were just walking around and wondering, ‘What the hell?!’ Some of the candidates, their numbers were going up really good. But we kind of expected (to see) what we did, what happened.”
“We did good, all of us through Saskatchewan. We did a good race and we’ll do better next time in 2024,” Sopp said.
She added that even though they realized that with its Wexit background, the Buffalo Party was a strong opponent, they didn’t think that the newcomers would pull so many voters.
It was Sopp’s first experience running as a candidate, so she assumed that her results wouldn’t be as high, but the experience was worth it.
“I was petrified,” Sopp said laughing. “(The experience) was awesome, I enjoyed it. But with COVID and everything, it made it a little bit tougher to do as much as I wanted to.”
She plans to get more done for the party ahead of the next elections and hopes it will bring different results in four years.
“In 2024 we are going to be coming back stronger and better than ever before,” Sopp said.
