Albertans woke Sunday to a new premier-designate — Ed Stelmach, a 55-year-old soft-spoken farmer who beat former finance minister Jim Dinning after a second weekend of voting by Progressive Conservative party members.
Dinning and rookie backbencher Ted Morton, who was policy director for the Canadian Alliance party, were in first and second place entering Saturday's vote for the provincial Tory leadership.
Ed Stelmach and his wife, Marie, listen to applause before addressing the crowd following the results of the second ballot in Edmonton early Sunday morning.
(Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)
They were trailed by Stelmach, a former intergovernmental affairs minister from the northern Alberta riding of Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville.
But when the ballots were counted, Stelmach came out on top. Many Morton supporters threw their support behind Stelmach, who then cinched the victory to become the province's 13th premier and head of a party that has governed Alberta for 35 consecutive years.
'Good guys do finish first!'
Standing in an old airplane hangar in Edmonton as blue-scarved supporters rocked the iron rafters with chants of "Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!" the man known as "Honest Ed" kissed his wife Marie and declared, "Good guys do finish first!"
With all 83 constituencies reporting early Sunday, Stelmach recorded 35.9 per cent of the vote, edging past 35.5 per cent for Dinning. Morton finished third with 28.6 per cent and dropped off the three-man ballot.
A total of 144,289 card-carrying party members voted, listing their first and second choices. With no candidate garnering a majority, Morton's supporters' second choices were apportioned to the top two to determine a winner.
The final tabulation gave Stelmach 53.9 per cent of the vote, compared with 38.5 per cent for Dinning, who was the front-runner going into the second ballot.
Stelmach, who has a reputation as a consensus builder, vowed in his acceptance speech to lead "an open, transparent, and inclusive government."
He steered clear of the mudslinging between the two front-runners during the campaign to replace Ralph Klein, who has been premier for more than 13 years and announced his retirement in September.
Stelmach said he's taking Sunday off to spend time with his family and won't be making any public appearances until Monday.
With files from the Canadian Press
Ed Stelmach has won the race to lead Alberta's governing Progressive Conservative party beating out former Treasurer Jim Dinning and Ted Morton. Stelmach, now premier-Designate of Alberta, will be sworn in as Premier of the Canadian province once outgoing leader Ralph Klein leaves office later this month.

Stelmach placed third on the first ballot of the party's leadership election last Saturday behind Dinning, the favourite, who was in first place and former university professor Morton who was in second place. The top three contenders in the eight candidate race proceeded to the second ballot vote which occurred yesterday. 

Stelmach was the surprise leader last night as the first choice of 51,764 voters (35.9%) to Dinning's 51,282 (35.6%). Morton placed third with 41,243 votes (28.6%) and was eliminated from the contest which then proceeded to counting the second choices cast by Morton's supporters on the preferential ballot. Once the second choices of Morton's supporters were factored in Stelmach surged ahead to win a clear victory by a margin of over 20,000 votes in the instant runoff. 

The vote was open to all Albertans who purchased a five dollar party membership including members of other political parties. Over 144,000 ballots were cast and reports indicate that a number of members of more moderate parties voted in order to prevent a victory by Morton, a social conservative and supporter of allowing private health insurance to compete with the province's public system of Medicare and has been portrayed as a "right-wing extremist" by his opponents. 

The Alberta Progressive Conservatives have ruled the western province continually since 1971. Stelmach will be the province's fourth successive Progressive Conservative premier.