Liberal incumbent Mary Polak held onto her seat in the revamped riding of Langley but she will have fewer Liberal MLA colleagues in the new B.C. government.
Polak had just over 44 per cent of the votes as of 10:26 p.m. with NDP candidate Gail Chaddock-Costello at 34 per cent, Green Elizabeth Walker at 15 per cent, Conservative candidate Justin Greenwood at 5 per cent and Libertarian Robert Pobran at 0.7 per cent.
When Polak was declared the winner Tuesday evening, she said she felt “A great deal of relief” and praised her volunteers.
Despite having been in office for more than a decade, she was still emotional.
“I have been a bundle of nerves the entire day. They kicked me out of the office early in the day,” she joked.
Polak said she still wants to be in politics and work for the people of Langley.
But she enters a very different political landscape.
The Liberals are down to 43 seats, the NDP has 41, and the Greens won three.
Polak said she’ll be sad to see some of her Liberal colleagues leave office. Former Langley City mayor Peter Fassbender lost his Surrey seat.
“Certainly I’d be sad to see Peter leave us as part of our caucus, but you always trust in the voters,” she said.
At Polak’s gathering Tuesday evening was Jasmine Tatla. The seven-year-old was attending with her grandparents.
“She said ‘I want to go’,” said her grandmother, Manjit Gill.
Jasmine has already said she wants to go into politics when she grows up.
Gill added that the little girl has been following along with the campaign although Jasmine still learning the finer points of a political campaign.
“She just asked me ‘Is Christy Clark here’,” grandma said with a chuckle.
