Monday, May 22, 2017

Leadership 2017 Candidate Profile: Ibrahim Bruno El-Khoury

I'll plan to add more to Ibrahim Bruno El-Khoury's profile later on if he adds more public-facing content to his campaign. For now, though, I'll put forward at least a placeholder profile based on what's missing.

Strengths

El-Khoury brings at least some political experience to the NDP's leadership race, including past campaigns for an NDP nomination and a City Council seat. And on paper, there would appear to be a niche available for a candidate fitting his profile, including a geographic base in Montreal and private-sector business and economic credentials.

Weaknesses

But given his level of familiarity with the political process (in contrast to, say, Pat Stogran's scramble to assemble the basics of a campaign), it's been disappointing to see very little from El-Khoury beyond his registration with Elections Canada a month and a half ago. The blog he's used for other campaigns remains dormant. And he's taken to Twitter to complain somewhat about a lack of coverage, but done nothing of note to justify it.

In additional to signalling a lack of campaign organization, that also means there's little positive content available even for voters who are looking for it from El-Khoury.

Key Indicator

For now, let's start with the obvious: if El-Khoury can't assemble the resources to put together a substantial campaign presence, his potential pluses don't figure to matter. (I'll update this point if he clears that hurdle.)

Key Opponent

While I mention El-Khoury's potential niche above, it bears some obvious overlap to the strengths of Guy Caron's campaign. And El-Khoury's role when it comes time to vote might include either playing up a set of issues and priorities which works to Caron's advantage, or helping another candidate by offering down-ballot voters a signal that he can also speak to them.
 
Plausible Outcomes

Best-case: A sufficient show of support and campaign strength to establish a place for El-Khoury as a key voice within the NDP
Worst-case: A distant last place as his campaign never gets off the ground

4 comments:

  1. I think you're over-estimating El-Khoury's strengths. Running - and losing - a nomination bid for what was realistically a throwaway seat for the NDP (as Papineau is Trudeau's riding) suggests, at least to me, that he won't even be able to reach the threshold necessary to actually enter the race (eg the fundraising or signatures). So I'd suggest his worst case is also his most likely and that he isn't even last but not even in the race.

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    1. That's a fair point to be sure. Both the party and other candidates have tried to ensure that others in the race have been able to reach those thresholds, and I'd hope there will be some effort to ensure they alone don't keep El-Khoury sidelined.

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