In a show of party support, Liberal delegates handed their leader, Prime Minister Paul Martin, an 88 per cent endorsement at the party's policy convention in Ottawa, Returning Officer Jim Evans announced Sunday.

The 88 per cent endorsement is a drop from the 93.9 per cent vote results in 2003's leadership race.

A grateful Martin told delegates: "Most deeply, I want to thank all of you for the tremendous vote of confidence that you have given me this weekend, it's a declaration of support not only in me, for which I am very grateful, but it's a declaration of support for our cabinet, for our caucus, for our government.

"And let me tell you, together we are going to take the Liberal Party into the next election campaign and together we are going to win that election," an impassioned Martin said to a room of cheering Liberals.

The question that delegates voted against was: "Do you wish the Liberal Party of Canada to organize a vote for the election of a new leader?"

Martin told party delegates that he couldn't wait to challenge Stephen Harper's Conservative vision of Canada not only in the House of Commons but on the campaign trail. The four-day convention wrapped up Sunday at noon.

The healthy majority endorsement of Martin shows he has passed his first leadership test, despite some turbulence since he won the election as a minority government with 135 seats last June.

This vote did not pit Martin against another leader, as was the case in 2003 when delegates chose Martin over Sheila Coops.

Rather, it was meant to judge a leader who was heading a party that had been demoted to a minority government.

"I think (it was) a respectable showing, I thought it was interesting that they didn't show us how many people voted," Darrell Bricker of Ipsos-Reid said on CTV Newsnet. An estimated 2,500 delegates were reportedly at the convention.

Since he took up the post of prime minister, Martin has dealt with the controversial same-sex marriage issue, a federal budget, the ballistic missile-defence plan, and the sponsorship inquiry.

Author and journalist Lawrence Martin told CTV Newsnet that Quebec voters, who are still grappling with the sponsorship scandal that unfolded in their own backyard, may not be as supportive of the Liberal Leader.

Martin's 88 per cent support is still the lowest for a Liberal leader in almost 20 years.

In 1998, Jean Chretien received 90.19 per cent and in 1994, he received 91.2 per cent.  In 1986 John Turner received 76.3 per cent -- two years after the Liberals suffered a disastrous defeat in the 1984 federal election.

In Friday's address to the convention, Martin laid out his government's achievements to Liberal delegates.

His list included: Improved health care and equalization funding for the provinces; new initiatives to clean up the environment; increased aid to foreign countries; and a cash infusion to Quebec's parental leave program.

Bricker said if the weekend's convention was a strategic effort to polish Martin's image, it will likely be temporarily successful.

"Strategically, they probably got some good news clips and the rest of it, but they're right back into the morass when they walk back into the House of Commons on Monday," he told CTV Newsnet.

As for Martin's talk on the next election campaign, it's unlikely an election will be called soon, CTV's Mike Duffy reported.

"What we're hearing privately from Liberal Party operatives is that they want to wait at least a year, and hope for an improvement in their fortunes in the province of Quebec in particular, where they lost seats in the last election, so I don't think an election is on the horizon right away," Duffy reported.

"Although in a minority government situation, one should never say never."

With files from The Canadian Press