[LINK] "Quebec’s Liberal ‘rebirth’ is just a PQ fade"

[rfmcdonald]

Veteran Québec columnist Lysiane Gagnon's latest article in The Globe and Mail, making an interesting comparison to the situation in France facing the Socialists. Is this what happens when cynicism about the governing parties spreads so much? And who will take over? (The Liberals of la belle province, as Gagnon notes, benefit from currently being the least unpopular party.)

Usually, it takes a few years for governments to beat themselves – typically more than one term in office. As time goes by, they accumulate mistakes, disappoint people and end up looking stale. The Parti Québécois government, however, is not even nine months old, yet poll after poll reflects widespread voter disenchantment.

The rate of dissatisfaction with the government is in the high 60s – as high as it was during the miserable last years of Jean Charest’s third mandate. And according to a recent Léger Marketing poll, the Liberals are now leading with 35-per-cent support, with the PQ at 27 per cent. This wouldn’t be enough to ensure a majority for the Liberals but it’d certainly be enough for the PQ to lose the next election.

[. . .]

Neither the French Socialists nor the PQ enjoyed the honeymoon usually granted to newly elected governments. Both have been characterized by erratic leadership, broken promises, botched policies followed by humiliating retreats, and cabinets in which too many ministers have been gaffe-prone neophytes or just plain incompetent. Both have been plagued with harsh criticism from left and right.

The PQ is in a worse situation, though, since it’s a minority government and has very little time to revamp its image. The party’s “anti-business” rhetoric has eroded its middle-class support, and its many turnabouts and compromises on key issues have alienated left-leaning supporters and hard-line secessionists. The PQ finds itself bleeding from both left and right flanks, as some of its supporters flock toward small ideological parties such as Québec Solidaire and Option Nationale while others go back into the Liberal fold.