[LINK] "Nothing certain in Quebec politics"

[rfmcdonald]

Chantal Hébert lets us know that the same dynamics that produced--and seem set to produce--perpetual minority governments in Canada at large also exist in Québec provincial politics.

Time will quickly tell whether Quebec Premier Jean Charest is acting on a political death wish as he sets in motion a plan to rush a reluctant electorate to the polls.

By all indications, the premier is so determined to seek a third mandate before the end of the year that he is about to overrule some of his most trusted advisers on the way to a Dec. 8 vote.

Even as neither of the opposition parties in the National Assembly is standing in the way of his agenda, Charest is poised to spend the next six weeks arguing that, with the economy in turmoil, a minority government is just another luxury Quebecers can no longer afford.

Interestingly enough, it is a case that the premier pointedly failed to make as Prime Minister Stephen Harper was campaigning for re-election earlier this month.

[. . .]

Francophone Quebec is one of the most volatile political scenes in the country these days but, as Harper's mediocre score demonstrated, the fact that federalist parties rarely have the wind at their backs remains a constant.

Charest's relationship with francophone voters is ultimately no less fragile than Harper's. According to two polls published yesterday, his lead in voting intentions obscures a much tighter race in francophone Quebec where his Liberals are, at best, dead even with the Parti Québécois.

Pauline Marois will be the untested quantity of the next Quebec campaign. Her beginnings as PQ leader have been unremarkable, but in a debate over the economy, she holds the ace of leading the party that actually brought Quebec into the club of balanced budgets.

Besides, since the last election, Charest has been on a one-man mission to destroy the Action démocratique du Québec party. It is a poorly kept secret that he dreams of pushing party leader Mario Dumont back to third place – to the point last week of wooing two nondescript ADQ defectors and praising them as if they heralded a Liberal Second Coming.

The polls tell a different story. They show that lingering support for the declining ADQ has actually been holding back the PQ. Charest's visceral attacks on Dumont could end up creating the conditions for a surge in Parti Québécois support, along the lines of the boost that gave Gilles Duceppe 49 of the 75 Quebec seats earlier this month.