By Roger Annis, April 8, 2014
Quebec’s minority Parti québécois government suffered a crushing defeat in yesterday’s provincial election. Party leader Pauline Marois, she of the ‘charter of Quebec values’ initiative that sought to dictate the clothing that public service employees of religious faith may or may not wear at work, lost her seat.The Liberal Party regained the majority government that it lost to the PQ in 2012, increasing its share of the vote from 31 per cent to 40 per cent. The PQ vote dropped from 32 per cent to 25 per cent.
The right wing CAQ party lost three percentage points in the vote but increased its seats in the Quebec National Assembly from 19 to 22. The Liberals won 70 seats; the PQ 30.
The left wing Québec solidaire won eight per cent of the vote, a gain of two points over 2012. It increased its share of seats from two to three. The party’s two, well-known sitting MNAs handily won reelection. All three QS MNAs were elected in inner city districts in Montreal.
Marois and the PQ made one blunder after another over the course of the election campaign. At the outset, her recruitment of ‘star candidate’ Pierre Karl Péladeau delivered a serious blow to the party’s social democratic credentials. He is a notorious, anti-union media tycoon.
Péladeau’s bold declaration of support for Quebec independence at the event announcing his candidacy was off-script and left the PQ scrambling. The party’s campaign intended to leave the issue on the back burner.
The Liberal Party ran a nondescript campaign, stressing its ‘economic’ credentials but providing next to nothing of substance. The party was unseated in 2012 by popular discontent, prompted by a mass student movement demanding fair access to post-secondary education. Its hold on power will be tenuous in the volatile political and economic climate in which it returns to office.
Recent Posts
