And the next government will be led by? We’ll see.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Let’s collectively drink a large pot of herbal tea before rushing to predict the winner.
Politics is not football, and even if it was, minimal respect requires waiting for the game to start before commenting on the outcome.
Polls are relevant in a democracy. The parties make them, and it is healthy that voters have access to such figures. For example, it equips those who wish to vote strategically. But in recent weeks, their use has gone very far. We act as if the winner was already known. As if the exercise was a formality, an administrative hassle.
I’m not predicting a close contest here. I’m not predicting anything, except that there will be too many predictions.
An election campaign is a great reset — a reset in the language of buttons. The slate is clean and citizens have a choice to make.
There are three dangers in acting as if this decision has already been made.
The first is that we short-circuit the debate. Parties that lag behind in the polls will be shunned, which harms them. And their program will not be analyzed closely, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage.
Want to be elected? Your commitments deserve to be scrutinized. Because even if you will not govern, you will defend these ideas in opposition. And because the rigor of your work in the campaign allows you to anticipate that which you will have in the National Assembly.
Premature verbiage about the end result changes candidate coverage, and sometimes also voter perception. In political science, we speak of the “fashion effect” (bandwagon-effect). Voters would join a party simply because they have the impression that others do. The popularity of a politician could also improve the image we have of him.
This phenomenon has been documented by some studies1. Others find a very modest effect2. But at the very least, the risk exists.
The second danger is looking crazy. History is full of examples of surprises. Think of the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 2011. I was on Jack Layton’s party plane. Halfway through the campaign, we did not yet clearly see it coming. And even when the polls began to evoke the orange wave, the entourage of the leader did not dare to get carried away. It seemed too big to be true.
We could also recall the breakthrough of the Action démocratique (ADQ) in 2007 or the comeback at the very end of the campaign of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) in 2014. It was measured even in the counting of the votes. When we counted the advance votes, made in advance, the CAQ star Christian Dubé seemed on the road to defeat. Then, the trend was reversed when we counted the votes recorded the same day. If the campaign had lasted another week, the CAQ would have beaten the Parti Québécois (PQ) to become the official opposition. And of course there is Justin Trudeau. On the starting blocks in 2015, he was third in voting intentions, behind Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair.
Finally, the third danger is specific to Quebec and Canada. It is linked to the distortions induced by our voting system.
According to projections of the number of seats on the Qc125.com site, if voters voted today, the CAQ would collect between 80 and 107 deputies. However, this overwhelming victory would come with less support than one might think. Or 42% of the votes (between 37% and 47%, if we include the margin of error).
The advance suddenly seems less historic. In 2014, Philippe Couillard’s Liberals won with 41.5% of the vote. And in 2008, Jean Charest had done even better, with 42.1%.
This relativizes the domination of François Legault. It’s not that he enjoys unprecedented support. Rather, his opponents are more divided. This year, no less than five parties will campaign nationally and will be invited to the leaders’ debate. A record.
Claiming that the outcome of the election is already known is also a way of trivializing the distortions created by our old voting system and of hiding the voice of Quebecers who do not make it their first choice. Because if the trend continues, as in each previous election, a majority of citizens will not have voted for the party in power.
During the campaign, you will be able to read on our pages analyzes of polls, in this column and elsewhere. This is part of the political cover. But these analyzes should not short-circuit the great collective debate that will take place over the next five weeks.
It’s a matter of logic, not to act as if the future had already happened. And respect for the voters who have not yet spoken, as well as for those who work hard to earn their trust. Because no, this campaign is not for nothing.
1 Read three studies on the fad