Charest wins 3rd mandate in Quebec

Source: CBC News

Jean Charest's political gamble paid off as Quebecers handed his Liberal party a majority Monday night.

The Liberals are leading or elected in at least 63 seats, the number needed to form a majority, CBC News projects.

The premier, holding a minority in the legislature, called a snap election this fall, seeking a "stronger" political mandate to counteract the economic downturn and trying to capitalize on a weakened opposition.

Voters answered Charest's call, backing the Liberals in greater numbers than the Parti Québécois and the Action Démocratique du Québec, and giving him a historic third mandate.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/quebecvotes2008/story/2008/12/08/qv-electionleadall1208.html

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La Province de Québec's Liberals will govern for the next 4 years (approximately).

They will be closely "monitored" by a strong opposition from the PQ (but no referendum in sight).

At least Harper's minions won't be successful at 'scaring' Canadians with "the separatists" 'cuz they can't separate (yet)...

The Liberals are pretty worthless.

(i.g., the possibility for a coalition of federal Liberals and New Dems to kick Harper's "derriere" soon) I think Quebecers "chose" to help a large majority of Canadian voters (who didn't vote for the constantly destructive neocons in Ottawa) first.

Voting for the PQ at THIS election has merits, but "first things first" IMHO.

Let's kick Harper and his minions out for good in less than two months!

(Federal Liberal leader - and 'lame duck' - Dion stepped down today: Michael Ignatieff is presumed to step in.) :bounce:

Hope he'll be Prime Minister soon! :party:

Not as a provincial party anyways.

Just to point out a few things with some of the above comments:

The NDP isn't present in Quebec's provincial elections. Here, the parties are:
-Liberal Party of Quebec (center-right, socially progressive);
-Parti Québécois (generally centrist, used to be much more on the center-left, socially progressive, was founded as a vehicle to Quebec's Independence);
-Action Démocratique du Québec (right-wing, social conservatives);
-Quebec Solidaire (left-wing, social progressives, their typical candidate was about as much a leftist as Kucinich);
-Green Party (well... greens :D)

The way it was before the elections, the Liberals had a minority government, with the ADQ being the Official Opposition and the PQ a close third. QS and the Greens had no seat, despite getting 5% each at every election or so. It's very difficult for new parties to emerge since they have to concentrate on electing one or two MPs then building on that. So they need to have a strong national presence while, at the same time, focusing on a few races they have a chance to win.

The results are:
The Libs (42%) and the PQ ate the ADQ (17%) and its seats. Libs got a majority government (by a few seats but we hardly have fence sitters, here deputies most always vote with their party). The PQ got back on its feet from consecutive bad results since 1998 or so, winning a good 35% of the vote and securing 53 or so seats, with the Libs taking 66 or so (some are still too close to call or will be facing recounts, since near ten seats (out of 125) were won with less than 150 votes majorities). The ADQ crumbled and has only 7 seats left, down from a previous high of 35 or so. Its leader just announced he was quitting the political scene.

The big news, for us leftists in Quebec, is that Quebec Solidaire managed to elect one of its two spokepersons, Dr. Amir Khadir, an iranian immigrant and a militant for real leftist parties since more than a decade.

I'm not mad, this is close to the best realistic results we could hope for. :)