 Critics at first compared Stelmach to Harry Strom, the last Social Credit premier of the province. Strom was regarded as honest but ineffective and lacking charisma; he survived only long enough as Premier to lose the 1971 election soundly. Thus ended the last long one-party rule, and observers asked if history would repeat with Stelmach. After Stelmach's landslide win in the 2008 election, however, the comparisons largely ceased.
