QUEBEC | After a laborious campaign, François Legault was returned to power at the head of a majority government for another four-year term.
• Read also: [EN DIRECT] The CAQ re-elected: follow the progress of the elections minute by minute
The suspense was short-lived.
It only took eight minutes after the polls closed for the host of the election evening on TVA, Pierre Bruneau, to pronounce the magic words: “If the trend continues, the next CAQ government will have a majority .” A result that will not surprise anyone, in light of the many opinion polls that gave the winning CAQ team even before the start of the electoral marathon.
As soon as the first results from the advance poll were announced, the advances of the CAQ were such that the election of several candidates from François Legault’s party was confirmed. In Trois-Rivières, voters re-elected Jean Boulet. Bernard Drainville was elected in Lévis.
The election of Jonatan Julien in Charlesbourg has also been confirmed.
At 8:30 p.m., the Conservative Party of Quebec had no candidate in advance. Éric Duhaime trailed caquiste Sylvain Lévesque by some 300 votes.
reactions
This result was greeted with emotion by the candidate of the CAQ in La Prairie and outgoing Minister of Health Christian Dubé.
“I am still very moved, I have my family with me. I can’t tell you how happy I am. I think Quebecers liked what we did despite the pandemic […]. They want us to continue. The fact of having this type of mandate so early this evening is the greatest gift we can have.
“We were confident, but we took nothing for granted. We worked so hard until the very last minute to get votes out […]. People are very happy here tonight, it’s endless happiness,” noted Geneviève Guilbault, CAQ candidate in Louis-Hébert.
At 5:30 p.m., the turnout was 44.63%. Advance voting reached a record high this year, with more than one in five voters (22.92%) turning out to vote before polling day.
It is in the greater Quebec City region that we currently observe the highest participation rates.
In 2018, the turnout at the end of the evening was 66.45%, which was then the second lowest result in history.
The record for turnout belongs to the Parti Québécois election in 1976, when 85.27% of voters went to the polls.
Legault wins easily in L’Assomption
The voters of L’Assomption opted for continuity by offering a fourth term in a row to Premier François Legault.
The leader of the CAQ dominated with more than 70% of the votes cast around 8:20 p.m., leaving only crumbs to the four other parties. The Parti Québécois came second far behind with 13% of the vote.
Elected for the first time in 2012, François Legault has been representing Assumption voters for 10 years now.
In 2018, Mr. Legault seduced more than half of the voters in his riding by winning 57% of the vote, eclipsing by far his main rivals from Québec solidaire (17%) and the Parti québécois (14.5%).
– With the collaboration of QMI Agency
More details to come…