1956 Saskatchewan general election
The 1956 Saskatchewan general election was the thirteenth provincial election held in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was held on June 20, 1956, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.
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53 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan 27 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The campaign
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government of Tommy Douglas lost a significant share of the popular vote, and 6 of the seats it had won in the 1952 election; but retained its majority in the legislature, winning a fourth term in office.
The Liberal Party of Alexander H. McDonald also lost votes, but picked up an additional three seats.
The Social Credit Party of Saskatchewan rebounded from its poor results in previous elections to win over 21% of the popular vote. Because this was spread out across the province, however, the party won only 3 seats in the legislature under the British parliamentary first-past-the-post system.
Results
| Party | Party Leader | # of candidates |
Seats | Popular Vote | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | Elected | % Change | # | % | % Change | |||||
| Co-operative Commonwealth | Tommy Douglas | 53 | 42 | 36 | -14.3% | 249,634 | 45.25% | -8.81% | ||
| Liberal | Alexander McDonald | 52 | 11 | 14 | +27.3% | 167,427 | 30.34% | -8.93% | ||
| Social Credit | 53 | – | 3 | 118,491 | 21.48% | +17.58% | ||||
| Progressive Conservative | Alvin Hamilton | 9 | – | – | – | 10,921 | 1.98% | +0.01% | ||
| Independent | 2 | – | – | – | 4,714 | 0.85% | +0.57% | |||
| Labor–Progressive | 2 | – | – | – | 536 | 0.10% | -0.11% | |||
| Total | 171 | 53 | 53 | – | 551,723 | 100% | ||||
| Source: Elections Saskatchewan | ||||||||||
