More new blood, but still many default victories across Manitoba in civic elections

Local democracy in Manitoba is showing subtle signs of improvement.

Municipal election results are in for each of Manitoba's 137 municipalities, providing a province-wide snapshot of how civic elections unravelled on the ground.

In 2014, nearly 30 per cent of elected municipal officials were acclaimed because of a lack of competitors. In this week's election the number remained the same, with 30 per cent of councillors and heads of council winning seats by acclamation.

These figures do not include local urban districts seats, which are elected positions created at the discretion of each municipal council. In total, 76 of of the 130 local urban district seats were acclaimed.

Compared to school trustee elections where nearly half of the candidates won seats just for signing up, this is a significantly better level of participation.

In total, 13 municipals governments were formed entirely by acclamation:

• Carberry (town).
• Elton (rural municipality).
• Grand Rapids (town).
• Hamiota (municipality).
• Minto-odanah (rural municipality).
• Niverville (town).
• Oakview (rural municipality).
• Pembina (municipality).
• Powerview-Pine Falls (town).
• Prairie View (municipality).
• St-Pierre-Jolys (village).
• Victoria (rural municipality).
• Whitehead (rural municipality).

Turnover a good sign: AMM

The executive director of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities says nearly half of elected officials who now have a seat at the council table are political neophytes, and with that comes fresh ideas.

"In some cases incumbents chose not to run again and in some cases incumbents were defeated," says Joe Masi.

Masi says his association will be busy working with these less experienced officials to help train and support them during the transition period to get them fully up to speed on the inner workers of municipal politics.

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Another sign of democratic health is turnover levels across councils.

In 2014, 57 per cent of officials were incumbents, meaning significantly less turnover had occurred.

Another minor shift was the increase in gender balance across the board. Three per cent more women are now represented on municipal councils — raising total representation across the province to 20 per cent. In total, 21 women were elected heads of council, compared to 15 in 2014.