Former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, a potential star Liberal candidate in the next federal election, has said he won't seek office because there are no vacant seats near his Moncton-area home.

McKenna, a lawyer and businessman, had expressed a desire to run for Paul Martin's Liberals if there was a local vacancy. But the two Liberal MPs who currently hold seats in the area, Dominic LeBlanc and Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw, had been unwilling to step aside.

"I made it very clear ... I had no intention of challenging the current Liberal members representing Beausejour and Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe," McKenna said in a statement.

"I have made it categorically clear, both publicly and privately, that the wishes of incumbent MPs must be fully respected."

McKenna also said Bradshaw and LeBlanc should be applauded for their commitment to run.

Denis D'Amour, a spokesman for Bradshaw, said the minister would not comment on McKenna's decision. LeBlanc couldn't be reached for comment.

McKenna had previously said he hoped to run in an uncontested riding that was "generally in the area where I live and work."

McKenna works in Moncton but lives in nearby Cap-Pele, N.B., which is in LeBlanc's riding, Beausejour-Petitcodiac. LeBlanc has also already filed his nomination papers, and intends to run in the next election.

Bradshaw, the MP for Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe and Atlantic Canada's only female cabinet minister, said on Tuesday that McKenna would have to challenge her for the Liberal nomination if he wanted the seat.

Martin met privately with Bradshaw last week to discuss her political future.

In his release, McKenna said he had no interest in running as a "parachute candidate" anywhere else in Canada."

He said he had "no personal ambition to return to public life," but wanted to help "champion the prime minister's ambitious agenda for Atlantic Canada."

The Liberals had been courting McKenna for months. The former premier was also being touted in party circles as an eventual successor to Prime Minister Martin, who said McKenna would be a "tremendous asset to the Canadian government."

As New Brunswick's premier, McKenna forged a national reputation as an ambitious go-getter with a savvy business sense.

Ironically, Bradshaw has said she entered federal politics partly because she was outraged by McKenna's fiscal conservatism and his cuts to her province's social programs.

McKenna's rampant cost-cutting in the 1990s included cutting thousands of dollars to a program Bradshaw ran in Moncton that offered early intervention in troubled lives.

McKenna left provincial politics in 1997, fulfilling a promise to his family to remain in public life for only 10 years.

He plans to continue working as a lawyer, attending speaking engagements and running his manufacturing business.

The Liberals have already seen nomination battles turn nasty in two Ontario ridings, specifically in Hamilton, where longtime MP Sheila Copps lost a contentious battle to Transport Minister Tony Valeri.

Martin has expressed an unwillingness to involve himself in nomination battles.