Presidency of the PLQ | Carlos Leitao raises his hand

Former finance minister Carlos Leitão is showing interest in taking over the presidency of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ). The political formation will have to face significant financial challenges, after having collected the worst score in its history in terms of popular vote.

Posted at 11:42

Fanny Levesque

Fanny Levesque
The Press

The presidency of the PLQ will be left vacant by the election Monday of Linda Caron in La Pinière. The outgoing deputy of Robert-Baldwin, Carlos Leitão, who was not seeking a new term, raises his hand to occupy the interim, until a president is appointed in good and due form at a future congress.

“We will have to ensure this transition and if the party is interested, so am I”, declared Mr. Leitão in an interview with The Press. The latter occupied the presidency of the campaign and was very present on the ground.

If the Liberals of Dominique Anglade managed to limit the losses on Monday, they also recorded a historic low on Monday with 14.4% of the popular vote, which will have a significant impact on finances. Political parties receive an annual allowance calculated in particular according to the number of votes obtained. This amount is around $1.70 per vote.

“There are going to be organizational challenges in the sense that we will have to post mortem of the campaign, of the result in terms of votes, what does that mean in financial terms. We are at 14%, what does that mean for the finances of the party? », explains Mr. Leitão. He believes that these are issues that the PLQ must tackle before thinking about its next strategy and its “approach to Francophones”.

“You’re going to have to think about the logistics to be able to get through all of this,” he added. the Montreal Journal had revealed before the campaign that the PLQ had been forced to take out a mortgage on two buildings to pay its election expenses.

“We’re going to have an important parliamentary wing, the official opposition and everything, but we also have to think about the party as such. To ensure that it remains viable so that we can then prepare for the 2026 elections,” said the former Liberal minister.

Dominique Anglade, who had a difficult start to the campaign marked by several pitfalls linked to the liberal organization, also admitted Monday evening that it was necessary to work on the reconstruction of the party.

The PLQ also has far fewer members than it had, with some 20,000.

It is the members of the executive who will appoint an interim president until the next Liberal convention where an election will be held. This gathering could only occur in 2023.


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