Legalise Cannabis Victoria (LCV) could win three upper house seats in the state elections, with AltMed/Phytoca’s Andrew Dowling closing in on Western Victoria.
With 72% of the count completed at the time of writing, Dowling is sitting in fifth place on 71,272 votes after preferences, a share of 18%. Five upper house Legislative Council MPs are elected in each of the state’s eight regions.
Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party trails LCP on 58,029 votes, a 14.65% share.
On Monday, with counting still in its early stages, LCV party secretary Craig Ellis said he was “cautiously optimistic” Rachel Payne would be elected in South-Eastern Metropolitan along with David Ettershank in Western Metropolitan.
Today (Thursday), Dowling told Cannabiz: “Counting is still continuing and it’s too early to tell exactly how many seats LCV will pick up, but we are hopeful of gaining at least one in the upper house.
“The final results will be determined on December 13 when ‘below the line’ votes are counted. Until then we are watching the count with our fingers crossed.”
There are 40 seats in the upper house and with Labor and the Coalition likely to end up sharing 30 of those more-or-less equally, representatives from minor parties should hold the balance of power.
However, it wasn’t all good news for progressives, with Reason Party leader Fiona Patten in danger of losing her seat in Northern Metropolitan to the socially conservative Democratic Labour Party’s Adem Somyurek.