Quebec Elections

Thanks for the updates and well executed explanations fire_i, and keep em coming.

[popcorn]

Thanks, even though I don't think I was really all that eloquent. I added lots of stuff at odd places before finally posting the message, so the coherence is a bit off.

Very good resumé. You forgot to add one very important facteur, the budget.

Oops, I double posted. Bah.

I included the budget in the program. In fact that's mostly why I dubbed the ADQ's program as "unrealistic", because the one and only number they mention is out of whack.

EDIT: Wait, I get it now, you mean the federal budget. You're right, I forgot it. My bad.

Well, I think it'll have some impact, but I don't think it'll be major like most medias seem to believe. We'll probably see the PQ lose about 2-3% in favor of the Libs (or maybe the ADQ, but mostly the Libs).

What is likely to play a bigger role is the numbers Dumont calls using the federal budget : if they make sense (like, if he actually admits his program would cost many times more than the $1.7G he's mentionning), then he's likely to at least keep his support and perhaps even continue gaining a little more. But if it's really anything, and that's what I expect, then the other chiefs, especially Boisclair, will not fail to remind everyone. And that could potentially hurt the ADQ substantially.

If you see the ADQ starting to drop before March 26, chances are even more people will abandon ship right before election day. Dumont really can't afford to lose support, he's too vulnerable to snowball effect. Still, even then, I just don't see him being able to cope with the attacks of the two other parties for another 8 days : that's simply too much of a task for the guy, I'm afraid.

Cette élection est folle en crisse. J'ai trop hâte de la voir finir dans une semaine.

Boisclair, Dumont et Charest...quelle gang de con cou dégueulasse.

[bash]

Euh voyons donc, j'espère que "le coke sniffer" gagnera parce que je suis tellement tanné de Charest.

En plus, je suis CONTRE le dégel des frais scolaires. Jamais je ne supporterai un parti qui le ferait. :evil:

PQ 32%
PLQ 30%
ADQ 28%

There all in the margin of error so any one of these 3 could form a minority goverment.

The best deal for the seperatist with a minority government would be the ADQ.
Cause Dumont wants to do almost the same as Robert Bourassa. But as every other deal the quebec gov. tried to make with the rest of Canada it will fail in the end.
What will be left when Canada has proved once again that it doesn't want Quebec to atain its full potential?
A referendum.

Dumont might say the he will never support a other referendum! When his deal will fail he wont have much of a choice.

He had to do it!!!
He could't keep his mouth shut!!!

Ladys and gentlemen, boys and girls, our great PM Harper has intervined in the internal affaires of the province.

This is an article from CBCNews

they still having no luck becoming part of france?

For your enjoyement

[youtube width=425 height=350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8LAxiM2HDU[/youtube]

Drink up mario :lol:

Awww Elvis, you disappoint me! I wanted to post that video!

Regardless.

Election update time!

PLQ/Charest : In my last post, I claimed Charest had 8 days left to "turn his campaign around", get a more aggressive stance and try to claim back the votes he had slowly lost to the ADQ through the campaign - sadly for him, things just aren't working. With 3 days to go, he has yet to succeed in this goal and, honestly, I think we can say it's too late for the PLQ to do that. His inability to go on attack mode forced Charest to spend yet another five days defending his government, and that's a terrain he can only lose on.

I have to say, however, that the Libs are far from being dead : they don't trail by all that much in the polls and the underestimation of their votes might just make the results stride away from said polls.

Charest and his party have been under fire since the debate, but this has to be considered a normal situation for an electoral campaign. This expectable situation makes Charest's defensive stance even more surprising considering one would generally believe such a seasoned campaigner, who's at his best during election time, would have a much easier time correcting the problems his team suffers from during this crucial month.

One thing that may just be a sign of an impeding Liberal fall in the election is Charest's promise of putting millions of dollars gained through equalization payments into tax cuts : this is a desperate measure, especially considering there is incredible cynism towards tax cuts in Quebec right now after Charest promised tax cuts nearing $2G in the 2003 campaign only to claim he would be unable to conduct these only 5 days after being instated as Premier. The fact it's Charest promising this again only exacerbates the untrusting feeling of the population. As if that wasn't enough, those who are tempted to vote Liberal are generally favorable to federalism, so usually they care about the opinion of the rest of Canada at least slightly ; Yet, the ROC is currently mad at Charest as they feel sending money to Quebec to found tax cuts is injust. Theoretically speaking, they are wrong as Charest can lawfully do as he wishes with that money, but knowing that the spirit of equalization payments is allowing every canadian province to give equal service no matter their revenue, and not funding tax cuts, the anger of canadian citizens is perfectly normal.

This measure was taken short after a disastrous poll for the PLQ (I'll talk about it later) showed it had pretty much lost any glimmer of hope of taking Quebec City, which doomed it to lose at least 8 seats - and they can barely afford that. It seems the PLQ's heads of organization, Charest included, are simply struck by panic, especially considering the infinitesimal chances of a tax cut proposal being well received under the current circumstances.

PQ/Boisclair : As I said in my lenghty post at the end of page 2, Charest's performance in the last 8 days of the campaign was likely to decide which of the PLQ or PQ would form the next government. Yet, Charest arguably had the worst week of his campaign, and one of the worst of his entire political career : to add insult to injury, the PQ, since the debate, avoided being attacked. Basically, Boisclair's team's having things easy : they hardly have to worry about defending themselves at all and instead spent most of the last 5 days attacking or mentionning their platform (mostly the former though).

However, Boisclair has failed to obtain the media attention once again ; oddly enough, Charest's descent was discussed of more than the PQ's slight but impactful comeback. At best for Boisclair, he received as much attention as Dumont's ADQ, but honestly he still seems like the 3rd man in the media for me.

The PQ was the only party not to consider the federal transfer increase in its budget at first : therefore, after Harper announced said increase, the PQ could add a "free" $1G to its budget. However, instead of putting it in a flashy measure as could be expected, Boisclair and his team decided to use it to fill an alleged $1G "hole" the Libs might have left behind after their mandate (it's probable, but I honestly don't know whether or not it's truly the case). Personally I prefer to see a realist, even pessimist, platform, but I doubt this was a wise move by the PQ - they had a chance to score big points there but didn't take it. However, this might just help them should they be elected as their promises are likely to be surprisingly easy to keep, which might play in their favor come the next election.

The polls in Quebec City have also been disastrous for the PQ, but much less than for the PLQ - they probably will get only a single seat, but that's what they had to begin with at the start of the campaign so I doubt they're very worried. Meanwhile, the polls in the rest of the province are rather encouraging for them, at least compared to the rest of the campaign.

ADQ/Dumont : Earlier on I claimed Dumont's credibility was hanging by a thread. Fortunately for him, by finally putting numbers on his budget (even though their numbers are under constant fire from economists and especially the other parties), Dumont apparently managed to comfort his troops. He has been aimed by both the PQ and PLQ during the last 5 days, but the impact of these attacks has been minimal at most : in fact, the ADQ comforted its weal lead in Quebec City to an imposing one, effectively making the capital its political fortress.

On another, more negative note, a dangerous constant has emerged through the ADQ : its candidates are regularly thrown in controversies. About twice a week since the beginning of the campaign, an ADQ candidate has been seen his judgement severely questionned after making a major mistake ; the latest example being alleged anti-semitic comments by a candidate.

Personally, I witnessed the ADQ candidate living in a nearby circonscription answer to the following question : "What do you plan to do about culture in the area of Portneuf?" in that way : "Right now I have absolutely no idea". Oh, he also mentionned he was "a candidate with no experience whatsoever" and that "no matter how many monies (and that's a litteral translation) we put to prevent crime, it won't do anything as youths only need more love". More anecdotic than anything else, but I found this plain hilarious.

Still, the ADQ's stronger than ever.

Now on to some more specific issues.

Harper claims he won't negotiate with a separatist government : Harper might have been trying to polarize the vote around the PQ and PLQ so that the PLQ could slip in-between the PQ and ADQ in areas where there are three-man dogfights, but that'd also mean giving the PQ much help in many outer regions where it and the ADQ are the only two serious contenders left. As such a move would at best only negate itself for Harper, his claim was probably simply a genuine mistake. One must note that all five major Quebec parties decried Harper's move, making this one of the few issues, along with some environmental politics, on which everyone agrees.

The Quebec City poll : About a week ago it seemed Quebec City would be a race between "2 and a half" parties : the ADQ and Libs were really close to each other while the PQ, while not all that far behind, didn't seem threatening to either of them. Now, the ADQ shot up to 40% (up ten) of the popular vote while the PLQ dropped all the way down to 24% (down eight) while the PQ remains pretty stable at 26 (up one). With the exception of one PLQ fortress and one PQ stronghold, it seems the city will go to the ADQ.

One must note a few things though.

Quebec City is known for its "vengeful voters", who don't vote for a party, but rather against one of all others, and they do that when it hurts the most. However, oddly, we also tend not to take too much risks and tend to still side with the party that takes power. Yet, this time, we probably are seeing the opposite phenomenom : the ADQ is expected to lose, so people dare vote for them... but if it seemed like they might just win at some point, people might be "scared" and ultimately decide not to vote ADQ.

QC is also known to be an oddball when it comes to politics. On every level. On the federal level, when everyone thought the city would go to the Bloc, it went to the Cons. On the municipal level, we elected an unusual mayor to say the least even though she was an independant and came midway through the campaign. It's therefore not so surprising we vote ADQ on the provincial level, and considering it'd be extremely surprising for a poll to show the ADQ might just win, this tendency is likely to uphold until voting day.

Basically, take this poll with a grain of salt, it's probably not a good portrait of the situation overall.

What might influence the results on voting day : Won't be the weather, as it's expected March 26 will be warm and sunny. Bad weather would have hurt the PLQ and probably helped the ADQ most, but it's unlikely we'll see bad weather. If that happens however, the results could be even more unpredictable, especially where the PLQ is leading very slightly or where the ADQ or, to a somewhat lesser extent, the PQ is second but by a tiny margin only.

The electoral "machines" of the PQ and PLQ will be working hard, that's for sure : however, the ADQ's is not as strong. Yet, the latter has an ace up its sleeve : the PQ's and PLQ's large "machines" have an incredibly hard time guessing if the people they're helping to vote are actually of their party. Many times, they might just end up helping an Adéquiste vote for Dumont's party, against their own will. Shouldn't be a major factor though. One last note, the PLQ's "machine" is known to be more effective than the PQ's.

Perhaps the ADQ is barking louder than it bites? Even if nothing could hint towards a disintegration of the ADQ's base, last-minute "betrayals" are likely to happen, mostly in favor of the PQ, are likely (The PQ is known to have a base that "simply can't vote another way", even when they claim they will all along - many of these have been tempted by the ADQ in polls, but how will they react when it comes to the real thing?).

The PLQ has the advantage of drawing indecisive voters at the last minute : this is almost certainly the last hope for the Libs, and God knows they're clutching on to it.

Marginal votes (Québec Solidaire and the Parti Vert du Québec) are mostly left-wing and separatist, and therefore pro-Boisclair and anti-Dumon : mostly the latter, though, so both the PQ and PLQ could benefit from another last-minute disintegration of these two parties's voting base. Boisclair's gang for the most part, however.

Personally, judging from the current conjecture, it seems likely the next government will be a minoritary Péquiste government, but I may be underestimating the loyalty of the ADQ's base or the number of indecisive voters who flock to the PLQ on March 26. Finally, the participation level is expected to be unusually high for many different reasons, but I'm not sure who it favors. Probably the ADQ, but the PQ might also benefit from it - the PLQ will not be as lucky in all likelihood as their base is rather aged and already has a very high participation level to begin with.

I hope this post has been informative.