The last few weeks have been unprecedented in Manitoba politics. It began several weeks ago with the public musings that Premier Greg Selinger was under pressure from some in his political party to resign. Up until then, those grumblings had been kept largely behind closed NDP doors.

But it broke wide open when five senior cabinet ministers in the NDP government openly called on the Premier to consider leaving. Their reason focused largely around the raising of the PST from 7% to 8% which broke an NDP election promise. Each of the five defecting cabinet ministers also voted for and defended the PST increase, but that small detail seemed not to bother them.

Once Premier Selinger made it clear that he wasn’t resigning, the five NDP cabinet ministers resigned themselves from cabinet and new ones were quickly thrown in to replace them. Many of the new cabinet ministers are rookie ministers, including NDP MLA Greg Dewar who had been passed over for cabinet for 14 years by two Premiers. He takes over Finance, one of the biggest jobs.

Then this week, Mr. Selinger apparently called for a review of his own leadership by the NDP. But he didn’t give many details on how that should happen so a series of emergency meetings have been called to figure it all out. One thing Mr. Selinger did say was that he didn’t plan on stepping down as Premier while the leadership race or review was happening.

Despite the NDP trying to say that things are “business as usual”, there is nothing usual or business like about any of this. Announcements have been cancelled, NDP ministers and the Premier have gone into hiding at various times and the sitting of the Legislature has been delayed and shortened. It’s clear the NDP are distracted by their internal fighting and our democratic process is along for the dysfunctional ride. The mere idea that the Premier could stay on in that job while he campaigns to remain leader of his Party is a sign of just how desperate things have become.

And while all of this has made for lots of interesting talk around the water cooler and in the coffee shops, the fact is it’s not good for Manitoba or for our democracy.  The Premier and his Cabinet are paid to perform certain duties and they cannot be performed while they are fighting with each other.

Nor should it be left up to a handful of NDP members and a few union leaders to decide who is going to lead the province. 2015 will be the 4th year of this mandate for the NDP government. Rather than let this drama play out for months and allow a small group of NDP insiders to decide who will be Premier for the last months of the term, it would be better to allow every eligible Manitoban to have a say now.

Mr. Selinger should allow all Manitobans, not just a few within the NDP, to have a vote on his leadership by calling an election.