Local realtor Arthur Mitchell won the Yukon Liberal Party leadership on Saturday night, defeating former premier Pat Duncan on the third ballot.

'It's not just my victory, it's an act of faith by the entire party in my ability to lead,' Mitchell told reporters at the Gold Rush Inn convention site.

Mitchell finished with 357 votes of the 661 ballots cast. Duncan took 303 of the votes.

Fifty per cent plus one of the votes are needed to win a leadership race.

The voting started at approximately 3 p.m. with four names on the ballot.

Elvis Presley, a Ross River-based musician and headstone maker, and Ed Schultz, a former grand chief of the Council of Yukon First Nations, also ran for the leadership.

Presley was ousted in the first round after taking only five votes from the 732 ballots cast. Schultz was eliminated in the next round, with 156 votes from the 680 ballots.

'I'm disappointed that I haven't kind of made this transition over to the mainstream political system in the way I liked but I think I made that quantum leap,' said Schultz.

He was the last candidate to enter the leadership race and had to give up his job as the grand chief to do so.

'I sacrificed a lot,' he said. 'In the immediate future, I'm going to have to find something to do that provides for my family.'

Schultz said he still expects to run in the next territorial election and hopes to do so in his home riding of Riverdale North. It's now held by the Yukon Party's Ted Staffen.

'I'm still convinced that this territory is in need of a revamping, a revamped economy, and I'll continue to champion that,' he said.

Schultz provided the shortest speech of the candidates, only taking about 10 minutes of his allocated 20 minutes' time. About three minutes into the speech, he threw away his notes, saying he just wasn't good at speaking from notes.

He told the membership it's important for individuals to be placed above the state in creating policies and that the territory needs to move away from its boom-and-bust, resource-based economy.

'I want to move forward with innovation to build infrastructure necessary to diversify the economy for value added to the richness of our raw resources and preprocessing, manufacturing and exportation to the markets where we can create some stable wealth and stable livelihood for our territory,' he said in his speech.

Schultz has diverse experience and knows how to get things done, said Mitchell, adding it's important to keep Schultz involved in the party.

After Schultz was knocked off the third ballot, he threw his support behind Mitchell.

Both men told the membership new leadership is needed for the Yukon public to seriously consider the Liberals in the next territorial election.

Duncan was premier from 2000-2002. When she called an early election in December 2002, however, her majority government was annihilated to the point where the party was left holding only one seat Duncan's.

The downfall of the Liberal party continues to be blamed on poor choices made by Duncan.

They include:

ï the 2002 election call, which could have been avoided had she been willing to take building a new Grey Mountain School in Riverdale out of the budget;

ï locking the government into a 10-year, $6-million build-to-lease contract for a one-stop shop government building on Quartz Road; and

ï not jump-starting the economy as quickly as Yukoners had expected.

Duncan also chose to call the leadership convention early. She said it was important for the party leader to have the mandate of the membership going into the next territorial election, which is expected to by called within the next 12 months.

Duncan's leadership campaign ran around the slogan of 'Choose Experience'.

She told the membership that experience is a requirement of the job of leader.

'I have the experience of debating in the legislature, facing the media and answering tough questions. I know this job, you know me,' she said in her speech.

A Liberal insider said Duncan needed to take the leadership on the first ballot if she was to win. She took a convincing 308 votes on that ballot, but it wasn't enough to beat Mitchell's 245 and Schultz's 174.

Despite her defeat, Duncan remained positive about the future of the party, saying it was a 'great day to be a Liberal,' but wouldn't commit to running in the next election.

Duncan is one of the longest-serving MLAs in the Yukon, having sat in the legislature since 1996.

'The energy in this room spoke for itself and what the energy in this room did for the Liberal party,' she said. 'I'm really proud that we had this convention and that I was able to participate.'

Mitchell told the membership he would take a different approach to the party and focus on returning to its grassroots and moving away from being a Whitehorse-based party.

Mitchell does not have any political experience. He has, however, held several volunteer positions in British Columbia and the Yukon, including the Yukon Chamber of Commerce.

The 54-year-old former Atlin, B.C. businessman ran in the 2002 territorial election but lost to the Yukon Party's Haakon Arntzen. He is now under pressure to resign his seat following last month's convictions of three counts of indecent assault.

If Arntzen, now an independent MLA, does step down and a byelection is called, Mitchell said, he expects to run for the seat.

Arntzen has refused to comment on his plans.

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