By Randall PalmerOTTAWA (Reuters) - Prime Minister Jean Chretien steamrolled on Monday to his largest election win yet, the first time since World War Two that any Canadian leader has won three consecutive majorities in Parliament.
Chretien boldly called an election only 3-1/2 years into his five-year mandate, defying his advisers and legislators, in order to capitalize on a lofty lead in the polls and to catch the young but surging small-government Canadian Alliance opposition off guard.
``I want to congratulate the Prime Minister, a threepeat, three majority governments in a row. This is indeed an historic event in our country,'' said Finance Minister Paul Martin, who would like to replace him but who campaigned loyally for him.
Chretien's younger brother Michel credited the prime minister's long political career for making the right decision to call the election.
``He had a certain vision, a certain intuition, that everything would go well. I think that tonight he was proved right,'' he told CBC television.
Many analysts had speculated about a minority government or a thinner majority, but in the end the Liberals won an even stronger majority.
CBC television said the Liberals were elected or leading in 169 seats. They went into the election campaign, one of the nastiest in recent Canadian history, with 161 seats and needed 151 to retain their majority.
Despite opinion polls saying it would be a close race, the Liberals held on to their huge power base in Ontario and made inroads in other parts of Eastern Canada.
The Alliance failed dismally in its bid to become more than just a Western Canadian protest party, virtually shut out of Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, but it became even stronger in the West.
The Alliance, which started with 58 seats, was elected or leading in 68 and cemented its position as the main party on the right, now clearly ahead of the Conservative Party, which has refused to end vote-splitting on the right.
``With the increase in seats that we have achieved and the increase in support in every region of the country, we continue to be and now are in an increased way the federal alternative,'' Alliance leader Stockwell Day said in a concession speech.
The vote-splitting particularly hurt in Ontario, which accounts for a third of the 301-seat House of Commons.
The Alliance had held just one seat in Ontario and, despite Day having spent much of the five-week campaign in the province, the party was leading or elected in only two of the 103 seats and the Liberals maintained their original 101.
Many analysts had expected it to be the last election fought by Chretien, 66, who first entered politics in 1963. Accused of arrogance and a lack of vision, he had been under enormous pressure to make way for the more conservative and popular Finance Minister Martin.
During the five-week campaign, Chretien hinted he might step down in two or three years, but made no commitment, and the apparently increased majority strengthened his hand.
One of the surprises was in Quebec, where the separatist Bloc Quebecois had won the majority of the seats in the last two elections as the result of a federalist vote split between the Liberals and the Conservative Party.
But the Conservative vote in Quebec collapsed and the Liberals appeared to have picked up six more seats.
Despite larger Conservative troubles nationally, Conservative leader Joe Clark scored an upset in winning a seat in the Albertan city of Calgary, where the Alliance is headquartered.
``Rumors of our demise were obviously grossly exaggerated. We had polls running showing us at zero and one and fighting for our very survival holding onto a handful of seats,'' said Clark's chief of staff, Goldy Hyder.
The leftist New Democratic Party had also fought hard to maintain its 19 seats. They were leading or elected in 13 seats, and party leader Alexa McDonough managed to retain her Nova Scotia seat.
Many of Canada's 20.4 million eligible voters questioned the need to hold a $130 million election at all. Analysts say turnout could dip below the old record low of 67 percent recorded in the 1997 poll.
Chretien had accused Day of harboring ``a hidden agenda'' to destroy some of the country's public health-care system and to hold referendums on issues such as restricting abortion.
Day had asked the police to investigate whether Chretien had broken the law by lobbying a federal bank to grant a loan to one of the prime minister's associates.
Chretien, first elected prime minister in 1993, favors a strong federal government that will actively help develop business and create jobs in Canada's poorer provinces.
The low-tax Alliance wants to slash these programs and transfer many of Ottawa's powers to the 10 provinces.
(Additional reporting by David Ljunggren, Patrick White, Allan Dowd, Robert Melnbardis and Rob Wilson)
