Len Rhodes, former president and CEO of the Edmonton Eskimos, has been appointed the United Conservative Party candidate in Edmonton-Meadows.
Rhodes’s final day with the CFL club was Wednesday. He had announced Feb. 11 that he was stepping away from the organization.
Three other candidates — Arundeep Singh Sandhu, Joel Mullan and Sant Sharma — had been running for the UCP nomination in the new southeast Edmonton riding since the summer.
UCP Leader Jason Kenney told an Edmonton news conference Thursday that a rule allows him to appoint up to four candidates, to allow high-profile people to run.
But couple of UCP members tweeted that they are leaving the party over Kenney’s move. Natalie Pon had been volunteering for a candidate in Edmonton-Meadows.
Longtime conservative Warren Mitchell said on Twitter he “was walking away. Jason Kenney and his team treat people like crap.”
“Now I find out that after Jason told one of my best friends [Arundeep Singh] for over a year that he would get a fair nomination, he broke his word by sending [Allan Hallman] to deliver the news,” Mitchell tweeted. “Didn’t have the courage & decency to do it himself.”
Mitchell and Pon declined requests for interviews.
Three people are vying for the NDP nomination in Edmonton-Meadows: MLA Denise Woollard and challengers Chand Gul and Jasvir Singh Deol. The candidate will be selected on Sunday.