The Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) will be, if the trend continues, the big loser of the electoral distortion.
According to the statistical model of the Qc125 electoral projection site, Éric Duhaime’s party could well win more than 15% of the popular vote in the general elections on October 3rd… but only one seat in the National Assembly. And again, the game is not won.
Indeed, the first-past-the-post system could prevent the Conservative leader from bringing “discontent” – and his “strong ideas” – into Parliament, according to polls. The reform of the voting system could then suddenly “interest” more than the “few intellectuals” who brandished posters on Thursday evening “Electoral reform, we want it! in front of the new Radio-Canada building, the scene of the second leaders’ debate.
Mr. Duhaime finds that “mathematics is difficult to follow” to predict the number of ridings that will fall into the hands of the PCQ on polling day. “See how weird it is: at 16%, the Leger puts up a winning seat; at 19.6%, the Mainstreet puts zero seats, ”he noted on the sidelines of an announcement in Saint-Georges on Tuesday.
The leader of the PCQ, however, remains withdrawn from the movement for the reform of the voting system. “I don’t want to promise it, because I saw Justin Trudeau promise it, and then he didn’t. I saw François Legault promise it, then he didn’t. I don’t want to be the third, ”he explained at the end of the debate on Thursday evening. Mr. Duhaime is content to invite his supporters to encourage a “good outflow of votes”, starting with the ridings of Chauveau, Beauce-Nord and Beauce-Sud.
The problem is that some PCQ sympathizers are much less zen than their leader on the issue.
” I am going to give [aux élections] one last chance, and after, it’s the revolution”, had launched Alain (who refused to give his last name) at the microphone of the CBC on the sidelines of a rally in Victoriaville on August 29th. What revolution? asked the journalist from the public broadcaster. “Take up arms, armed revolution,” replied the conservative sympathizer.
The world upside down
The election on October 3 could be characterized by the largest gap in Quebec electoral history between the distribution of votes and the distribution of seats in the National Assembly. And the CAQ would be a big winner.
Indeed, still according to Qc125, François Legault’s team would then collect 39% of the votes, but 76% of the seats (95 out of 125). Prime Minister François Legault would thus have a parliamentary supermajority, even if 61% of voters would have voted for another party.
Mr. Legault repeated this week that the reform of the voting system is “not a priority for Quebecers”. What’s more, it could weaken the government of the only French-speaking nation in the Americas, argue the caquistes.
The leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Dominique Anglade, said she was ready to start a “conversation” on the subject. “It’s not in our program. The day it will be in our program, we will do it, ”she said Thursday.
The media release of Mme Anglade had reason to be surprised, since the Liberals had worked to ridicule the bill on the establishment of a mixed voting system with regional compensation presented by Sonia LeBel, before it was shelved under the pressure from his colleagues caquistes.
Basically, Bill 39 proposed to create two categories of MPs: 80 constituency MPs and 45 regional MPs. The constituency deputies would have been elected in the traditional way, while the regional deputies would have been appointed according to the vote obtained by their political party in the administrative region where they are seeking the vote. This mechanism would have made it possible to partially correct the distortion between the percentage of votes and the percentage of seats obtained by each of the political parties. “A cat would lose her young there! “Lamented Liberal MP Marc Tanguay at the time.
The PQ leaders, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, and solidarity, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, for their part reiterated the support of their political formation for a reform of the voting system.
“At the time, we didn’t complain about the voting system when it was the Liberal Party of Quebec against the Parti Québécois. There, what is different is that the opposition is divided into four parties. It’s too much. It does not work. There is a mechanism for counting pluralities which means that it benefits certain parties, ”notes Jean-François Godbout, professor of political science at the University of Montreal.
“But there is also a psychological effect that plays in the long term. If after three, four, five elections like that, we are in the same situation, the voters will try to coordinate at the slightest. The elites too,” he adds, recalling the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and Stephen Harper’s Canadian Alliance in 2003.
Professor Godbout also wonders “why these four parties [PLQ, QS, PQ et PCQ] are not able to find common ground to form coalitions”.
Modulate efforts
Pending a possible reform of our current voting system — or a reconfiguration of political forces — campaign teams must use strategy to maximize their chances of electing candidates.
For example, the “Change your address” operation launched by QS will allow the votes of young people who vote in solidarity to be counted in the constituency where they study – and where the candidate of the party has a good chance of winning, as in Saint-François, Sherbrooke, Rimouski or even Rouyn-Noranda – Témiscamingue – rather than in the one where their parents live, where “they go to eat lasagna twice a year”, according to Mr. Nadeau-Dubois.
New calls for the convergence of separatist forces, scattered on the right and on the left, were heard this week, including in the basement of the Saint-Édouard church in La Petite-Patrie. The Solidarity, PQ, Liberal and Culinary candidates answered questions from Gouin voters last Tuesday. The PQ candidate, Vincent Delorme, took the opportunity to invite his supportive opponent, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, to get out of the “political cul-de-sac” by once again supporting the idea of establishing strategic alliances in within the independence movement.
The united co-spokesperson refused to have any discussion on this. He also dismissed out of hand the calls for a strategic vote launched by Dominique Anglade in order to block the CAQ, judging them premature.