Green Party candidate Dr.Waji Khan briefly gives, then retracts, endorsement of NDP’s Vic Sahai
Surprise swept through the Kingston area electorate twice on Thursday, September 16, 2021 as Green Party MP candidate for Kingston and Islands Dr. Waji Khan first announced in a tweet that he would be switching his support to local NDP representative Vic Sahai, only to backtrack by deleting said tweet by mid-afternoon, and recanting his previous public endorsement in an additional post. The since-deleted tweet read:
“The Trudeau government has lost its moral authority to govern in this country and the Green Party has a real plan for prosperity. However with very low levels of national support and very little time to Brand a campaign, we aren’t likely to win.1/2.”
The tweet continued:
“It is perhaps better for our country to support other parties and candidates in order to ensure that we make some progress in our platform and also get rid of the Tyranny of Trudeau. In my riding I’m supporting Vic Sahai of the NDP. 2/2”
Vic Sahai was quick to respond to this surprising gear-switch on his own Twitter profile:
“I welcome this Endorsement from Dr. Waji Khan, Kingston and the Islands Green Party Candidate. Progressive voters in Kingston need to work together to oust the Liberals here. Emissions have climbed every year under Trudeau. We cannot trust the old parties with our future. Vic”
Vic Sahai also told Kingstonist at a Lake Ontario Park NDP rally held on the same day at 4:00PM:
“It is a great honour for Waji to support me. I’ve been following his career since we got into this campaign. Basically, he’s an environmentalist – I’m a passionate environmentalist. They have social policies that are very similar to the NDP’s. However, I think we are more in line with those social policies. But, what I really do appreciate with Wajit, is that he knew that by splitting the progressive votes we might not have a chance against the liberals. And he told me his goal –his whole record was to make sure that we had a candidate that could best represent Kingston,and not himself.”
At the exact same time that this rally began (4:00 PM), Dr. Khan further confused the already perplexed public with the following tweet:
“I posted a tweet this morning that supported the NDP candidate in Kingston. Like many struggling to make our voices heard in our broken FPTP system, I did so out of frustration & fear that the serious issues affecting my community are not being addressed.”
This series of tweets that followed had Khan also expressing his regret for the public endorsement, saying “strategic voting is not the solution” and hammered home his commitment that he was still vying for Green Party support from Kingston and Islands.
Vic Sahai claimed that he had spoken with Dr. Khan the night before as well as the morning of Sept. 16 at 10:00 A.M. with Sahai’s campaign manager at McDonalds restaurant in Kingston, where Khan confirmed to both parties that he was indeed endorsing Vic Sahai’s candidacy. However, an email sent by Waji Khan’s campaign manager, Tom Addison, told Kingstonist that the conversation which took place at McDonald’s was between two of the candidates only, and that no other member of Vic Sahai’s political campaign was involved.
Voters in Kingston and the Islands, and across the country, go to the polls on Monday, Sept. 20th.
I can see why Dr Khan has felt frustrated with getting fair coverage from the media, which of course then limits the chances of any new voices. Too bad Vic Sahai, Mark Gerretsen and Gary Oosterhof all deliberately have been refusing to come to candidate debates. Voters had questions, not just moderators who try to set up a 2 or 3 party only show. Shame on those that ducked debates as well as the media who failed to call out the behaviour when it was pointed out even at the televised debate. Democracy is in peril when only candidates with large budgets are heard.