It was to be expected. The stubborn determination of Quebec voters to support the life of five political parties was to come up against the implacable limit of a first-past-the-post system. Quebec’s democratic deficit is obvious to us the day after the re-election of Prime Minister François Legault, and an absolute majority of members of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ).
It’s a bad time for the opposition parties. At best, they preserve the achievements, such as the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) and Quebec solidaire (QS). At worst, they see a striking discrepancy between the votes collected and the seats won, like the Parti Québécois (PQ), with 15% of the votes and three seats, and the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ), with 13% of the votes and no seats.
There is nothing to dance about in the official opposition. The Liberal deputies, caught in a geographic and linguistic vice, no longer have the moral authority to speak on behalf of French-speaking voters. Its reconstruction will be long, painful. It will be easier than at the PQ, a party that will be rebuilt as a threesome with its spark, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
As for QS, his treadmill with 11 seats (one more than in 2018) represents the tax to pay for having campaigned on the backs of the “rich”. In the eyes of voters, this party is still far from offering an alternative to government.
For his part, the leader of the PCQ, defeated in Chauveau, will have the opportunity to show if he is a real leader. Éric Duhaime expressed in the campaign his desire to channel the anger of a section of the electorate into participation in the democratic debate. His mission begins today, and he will have to convince his base, excluded from the National Assembly, that the future of the movement does not pass through honking, demonstrations and truck rides of all kinds.
The fragmented opposition parties are therefore satisfied with the crumbs, even if they harvest together 57 %voices. Their speaking time and their visibility in the National Assembly will be limited. The absolute majority of the CAQ will be a poison for the democratic debate and an accelerator of the arrogance which awaits any government installed too comfortably in the Blue Room.
If the Prime Minister had kept his promise to reform the voting system, the result would have been different. With mixed proportional representation, the CAQ would still have won hands down with so much popular support, but the richness of the ideas expressed during the campaign would have spread to the National Assembly. The umbrella of the CAQ, as broad as it is, will not ensure the true circulation of ideas from left, right, country and province.
The 2022 election marks the triumph of a government that will do very well in the responsible management of public finances. Another milestone, less glorious, has just been set. To the applause of the people, the caquistes have trampled on the diversity of political expression by clinging to a voting system from a bygone era.