CALGARY - There's a new face on Alberta's political scene, made up of a couple familiar old ones.
The right-wing Alberta Alliance and Wildrose Parties have agreed to merge into a single entity called the Wildrose Alliance Party.
"The merger has been approved," said newly installed president Rob James after the Saturday meeting.
Paul Hinman, former leader of the Alliance Party and its only sitting MLA, will be the new party's leader.
With an election call from Premier Ed Stelmach's governing Conservatives expected within weeks, with a vote to be held in March, James admits the fledgling party has a lot of work to do. A platform has to be quickly developed and approved by the party membership, James said.
"This is truly a grassroots party."
Candidates have to be found as well, and James admits the party probably won't be able to run a full slate of 83 in the next election.
"I don't know whether that will be the objective," he said. "We recognize we have to have realistic expectations."
James said the Wildrose Alliance will try and carve out space to the right of the governing Tories during the coming election. He said the fact so many Conservative voters didn't turn out during recent byelections suggests that people are looking for someone new to support.
"Those are typically Conservative voters and conservative Albertans who feel they have been disenfranchised," said James, who managed the Tories' southern Alberta campaign in the 2001 provincial election.
About 200 people from across Alberta attended the meeting at a Calgary hotel Saturday.
Ousted Tory candidate Craig Chandler, who won the Calgary Egmont riding late last year only to have his nomination rejected by Premier Ed Stelmach, unsuccessfully attempted to be elected the newly born party's director. Chandler said he will run as an independent in the next election.
In the 2004 election, parties to the right of the Tories garnered about 12 per cent of the popular vote.
The Alberta Alliance party managed to elect Hinman in the southern Alberta riding of Cardston-Taber-Warner.
However, the Alliance came fifth in a byelection last June in the Drumheller riding.
