Elections NL says outgoing MHA John Abbott is guilty of no wrongdoing, but the PC Leader at the time of the COVID election says he was wrongfully elected.

Ches Crosbie was reacting to the out-of-court settlement regarding the results of the general election of 2021 in St. John’s East-Quidi Vidi where Abbott defeated then-NDP Leader Alison Coffin by 53 votes.

Two other districts were also very close in that election and were also going through legal challenges. PC candidate Sheila Fitzgerald lost to cabinet minister Krista Lynn Howell on the Northern Peninsula and PC Jim Lester fell to Liberal backbencher Lucy Stoyles in Mount Pearl.

Crosbie told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly that yesterday’s settlement confirms how much of a horror show that whole election was.

He says it gives the Liberal Party a black eye and casts a pall of illegitimacy over the whole thing because three Liberal members were wrongfully elected. The majority government that Furey and now Hogan enjoy is very much under question.

NDP Leader responds

NDP Leader Jim Dinn meanwhile says he has “mixed emotions” about the outcome of the case.

On one hand, he says there is “vindication” that irregularities crept into the voting process, but on the other hand there is frustration that St. John’s East-Quidi Vidi “missed out on NDP representation.”

When asked why he believes the vote would have been different, he points to Abbott’s resignation.

“If i knew that my position was solid, I would have fought it to the bitter end, simple as that” says Dinn, who asks how the Liberals can be so sure that they would have won.