ABBOTSFORD (NEWS1130) – A day after the BC Liberals acclaimed a criminologist to represent them in Abbotsford South, party members are shaking their heads.

And the Abbotsford city councillor who thought he should be the candidate wants to tell his side of the story.

Darryl Plecas was effectively chosen to represent the riding, bypassing the usual membership vote.  As a result, the executive of the riding association has quit en masse.

The man who wanted to run for the Liberals in that riding, Moe Gill, admits he signed a letter agreeing he would run instead in the riding of Abbotsford-Mission. But he insists he was forced to do so by party organizer Bruce Burley while they met in a restaurant.

“He’s pushing me so hard, I gotta get out of that restaurant. I’m not going to sit there and talk all day. I consider that bullying. It’s like ‘It’s my way or the highway. If you’re not going to do this, this is what is going to happen to you.’  So I signed it,” he recalls.

Gill says he has spent the last two years signing up new party members in Abbotsford South,  and has no desire to run in Abbotsford-Mission.

“They took my democratic right away from me, a member of the party for 19 years.”