{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.020335536349771224, 'fraction_numerical': 0.014743263853584139, 'mean_word_length': 4.638968481375358, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
An Ambivalent Electorate: A Review of the British Columbia General Election of 1996

THE BRITISH COLUMBIA PROVINCIAL PARTY system is in a state of transition. The collapse of support for the Social Credit party in October 1991 saw a third of the electorate turn to a previously moribund Liberal party. To no one's surprise, fifty-one New Democrats formed a new government, but, to the astonishment of even the seventeen new Liberal MLAS, the Liberal party became what could be described (not unkindly) as an "accidental" official Opposition. Five years later, the New Democrats have narrowly retained government office, with a loss of twelve seats, and the Liberals are the official Opposition, with thirty-three members in the seventy-five-seat Legislature. The Liberal 41-.8 per cent of the total valid vote placed them 2.3 percentage points ahead of the N D P in popular support and may be read as the second stage on the way to a reconfigured two-party system. In the new realignment, the Liberal party would assume the mantle once held by the Social Credit party, and the N D P would again be relegated to its role as a permanent opposition party. It is as if the BC 1975 general election were being played in fast reverse, with Social Credit's old political and economic elites rallying under the label of the BC Liberal party rather than the other way round. The evolution of British Columbia's party politics is unlikely to be so simple. The closeness of the 1996 election suggests that more significant political forces are under way than may be accounted for by a mere repackaging of party containers, and that any new party realignment may be some way off. The narrow margins in the 1996 electoral victories register the tensions of a continuing dealignment and an unaccustomed air of ambivalence towards the two main parties. Whether ensuing elections eventually result in a vibrant multiparty system or a in return to a two-party system, the 1996 outcome