(Quebec) The leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ), Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, refuses to commit to the upcoming election in Marie-Victorin, a traditionally PQ constituency, but asks Prime Minister François Legault to announce his colors as soon as possible.
Tuesday, in a press scrum, pressed for questions, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon categorically refused to say if he intended to be a candidate in Marie-Victorin, during the partial which must be triggered by spring, or if he would rather skip his turn.
The PQ activists will therefore have to be patient and wait until he is ready to say whether he will take the opportunity to try to enter the National Assembly in the spring or whether he will wait for the general election of the fall.
On the other hand, the PQ leader urges the Prime Minister to call this complementary election as soon as possible. Legally, he has six months.
“We will unpack everything in a very transparent way when the government has done its job, namely, if they do not intend to hold a partial before Christmas, when? There is a clarification, the ball is in the government’s court, ”according to Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon.
It is not known whether Prime Minister François Legault will be tempted, as has been done on several occasions in the past, not to present a candidate from the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) against the PQ leader, just to allow him to sit. in the National Assembly.
In 2018, the CAQ presented Martyne Prévost against PQ MP Catherine Fournier, who was re-elected with a slim lead of 705 votes. Since then, Mme Fournier sat as an independent as of 2019 and was elected mayor of Longueuil on Sunday, prompting a by-election to be held by the beginning of May.
Questioned Tuesday on his intentions, Mme Prévost did not want to comment. She says that she has not been contacted by the party leadership and that she has not started to think about it. In 2018, she was placed good second behind Mme Fournier, with 28% of the votes, against 30% for the winner.
On the other hand, the former PQ minister Martine Ouellet has already made his bed on the issue, saying that she is ready to announce her candidacy in Marie-Victorin now. After a brief stint in the Bloc Québécois, Mr.me Ouellet founded his party, Climat Quebec.
Apart from the PQ, the other two opposition parties also took a stand on the subject on Tuesday, taking different directions.
Liberal leader Dominique Anglade encourages the PQ leader to jump into the arena. If this is the case, in a gesture of “elegance”, the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) will not present a candidate in Marie-Victorin, but if it withdraws the PLQ will be in the race. In 2018, the PLQ was ranked fourth. She said she hoped the other parties would act like the PLQ on this issue.
But it won’t. Quebec solidaire does not intend to give the PQ leader a chance. The party will therefore present a candidate, because the citizens of Marie-Victorin “have the right to have all the options on their ballot”, according to parliamentary leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
For the Parti Québécois, lagging behind in the polls, the stakes are high, since without being an impregnable fortress, Marie-Victorin, which cuts across the city of Longueuil, has until now been part of what is called the “safe counties” of the PQ, these constituencies, less and less numerous, acquired for a long time to the sovereignist formation.
A defeat of the PQ in Marie-Victorin, just a few months before the general election, could be fatal for the morale of the troops, not to mention that it would allow militants to question the leader’s ability to make the sovereignist party a player again. key to the political scene. On the other hand, a victory could be the spark allowing all the hopes.