Ottawa

Team Mulcair v. Team Topp

Two of Thomas Mulcair’s supporters announced yesterday that Mr. Mulcair will announce his candidacy for the NDP leadership next week.

Interviewed on Tuesday, Mulcair supporters said the former Quebec cabinet minister and multi-term MP would perform better in an election campaign than Mr. Topp, who is not as experienced in front of the cameras.

“Mr. Topp is a candidate who doesn’t have much charisma, which would be a problem in the event of a televised leaders debate,” said New Democratic MP Tarik Brahmi, a supporter of Mr. Mulcair who represents the riding of Saint-Jean south of Montreal. Mr. Brahmi added that Mr. Topp, who has the endorsement of former NDP leader Ed Broadbent and former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow, “is the candidate of the apparatchik.”

Mr. Brahmi is, by my count, the ninth Quebec MP to side with Mr. Mulcair, but Mr. Topp now has the support of Alexandre Boulerice, perhaps the most prominent (so far) of the NDP’s Quebec newcomers. (It has been Mr. Boulerice’s job each afternoon to provide the en francais mocking of Tony Clement after Charlie Angus has done so in English.)

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