More than 5.6 million voters in Canada's French-speaking
province of Quebec are heading to the polls on Monday in a race
that is too close to call.
The election could result in a minority government in Quebec for
the first time since 1878, yet hold off another referendum in the
province on separation from Canada, analysts say.
Successive polls suggest Quebec Premier Jean Charest's
Federalist Liberals will win, but with a minority.
A minority win by separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ), led by Andre
Boisclair, 36, is also a possibility.
A recent poll conducted by the Strategic Counsel suggested 30
percent of voters support the Liberals, compared with 31 percent
for the PQ and Mario Dumont's Action Democratique du Quebec (ADQ)
with 28 percent. The poll's margin of error was 3.1 percentage
points, giving the parties a statistical tie.
Whatever the result, analysts say, Dumont's ADQ, which calls
itself "autonomist," will be a major winner. Dumont has proposed
that Quebec remain part of Canada but called for a massive
decentralization of federal powers to the province.
When the election was called on February 21 the ruling Liberals
held 72 of the 125 seats in the Quebec national assembly, the
provincial legislature. The Opposition PQ had 45 seats, the ADQ
five, one seat was held by an independent and two seats were
vacant.
Christian Rouillard, a political science professor at the
University of Ottawa, said in an interview that the ADQ is
benefiting from Quebecois' disenchantment with the Liberal
government and their embracing of a third option to break the
federal-separatist deadlock that has dominated the province's
politics since the 1960s.
Quebec held two referendums on separation in 1980 and 1995, and
the federalists won the second one by a narrow margin. However, a
PQ minority government would have to give up its repeated vows to
hold a new referendum because it would not gain enough support from
the other parties in the provincial legislature. Dumont has made it
clear he does not favor a referendum.
Jean-Herman Guay, a professor of political science at the
University of Sherbrooke, said the election marks a "turning point"
due to "the emergence of a conservative nationalism" in Quebec.
"We can see that voters are tired of the two big parties. It is
an election of realignment," he said.
Moreover, some analysts suggested that the Quebec election
result would likely benefit Prime Minister Stephen Harper and
trigger a federal election.
"If I were (Harper), I'd find a reason to pull the plug as soon
as possible," said Jean Lapierre, a seasoned observer of Quebec
politics.
He noted that the areas where Dumont's ADQ is doing well are
also areas where the federal Conservatives did well in the 2006
campaign, or could do well in the next federal election.
Harper's Conservatives won 10 seats in Quebec in the last
elections. Growth for his party in Quebec and Ontario are seen as
crucial to the Conservatives' quest to form a majority national
government.
(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2007)
