Dark horse candidate Stéphane Dion surged from fourth to first to claim the federal Liberal leadership, defeating Michael Ignatieff on Saturday in the final ballot.

'Let's get ready for the election,' declared Stéphane Dion during his victory speech.
(CBC)

Dion garnered 2,521 votes — about 54 per cent of the delegates — in the fourth-round tally ahead of Ignatieff, who received 2,084 votes, or about 45 per cent.

"The most exciting race in the history of our party is over," Dion told a jubilant crowd of some 5,000 delegates Saturday evening at the party's convention in Montreal. "Let's get ready for the election."

The new leader, who initially was given little chance to win, hailed his fellow candidates surrounding him on stage as a "Liberal Dream Team" that would defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tory government.

"We do not believe the Conservatives have bad intentions; we simply believe they lead to bad results," he said.

Dion also made light of running over the allowed time in his speech Friday evening, in which the end of his address was cut off by music.

"Last night, some of you were left to wonder what I was going to say in the rest of my speech," he said. "One of the perks of leadership is that they won't cut your microphone."

Made leap in third ballot

Dion entered the convention with the fourth-most amount of delegates, which translated to fewer than one in five supporting him heading into the first ballot.

He placed third in the first two ballots, but Gerard Kennedy threw him his supporters after the second ballot and Bob Rae dropped off after the third — allowing Dion to leap ahead of Ignatieff in the fourth.

Michael Ignatieff moves to make the election of Stéphane Dion as Liberal leader unanimous.
(CBC)

"We have chosen a man of principle, a man with vision, a man with courage, a man with conviction," Ignatieff said after crossing the convention floor and conceding defeat. "He will have my entire support."

Rae released his delegates to vote as they wished.

The former Ontario premier lost delegate support, despite heading into the third ballot with backing from two other candidates who earlier dropped out — Ken Dryden and Scott Brison.

As for Dion, he went into the third ballot with support of fellow candidates Gerard Kennedy and Martha Hall Findlay.

After the third-ballot upset, Dion said he was "extremely happy, extremely proud — when I think of where we were in the beginning and where we are now."

As the final vote was taking place, Bob Rae roved through the crowd signing autographs and posing for photographs.
(CBC)

"Hey, I'm the front-runner now," Dion told reporters with a huge grin on his face right after the results were read out.

With the shakeup and Rae out of the race, Dryden said his new pick for leader was Dion.

"My criteria all along is who is the best choice for running the country," Dryden said.

From dark horse to top horse

Dion became the third federal Liberal leader in a row from Quebec and the 11th leader of the party.

Dion's campaign focused on his track record as environment minister under Paul Martin and long record of working at high levels within previous Liberal governments.

Married with one daughter, Dion, 51, earned a BA and MA in political science from Laval University before obtaining a doctorate from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.

The bookish university professor was recruited by Jean Chrétien to run in a 1996 byelection in the Quebec riding of Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, a seat he won and has held for 10 years.

Dion held the post of minister for intergovernmental affairs for seven years but was dropped from cabinet in December 2003, when Paul Martin was sworn in as prime minister. The move was viewed as punishment for his close ties with Chrétien and unpopularity with several prominent Quebec Liberals.

Martin later brought him back into cabinet as environment minister after the Liberals won a minority government in the June 2004 election. In this role, Dion earned high praise for his work chairing the UN Climate Change summit in Montreal in 2005.

As a teen, Dion flirted with sovereigntists by campaigning for the Parti Québécois while studying at a Jesuit college in Quebec City, but later dismissed the activities as an adolescent challenge of his father, a towering federalist figure.

'Delegates go where the heck they want to'

Before the final results, Ignatieff told reporters he was not bothered that some candidates threw their support behind his rivals because he was still getting a lot of votes from delegates.

Ignatieff was the leader in delegate support after first-ballot results were announced just after midnight Saturday, but he had nowhere near the 50 per cent plus one majority needed to claim the job outright.

He received 29.3 per cent of the votes, ahead of Rae, who garnered 20.3 per cent. Dion narrowly finished third with 17.8 per cent.