There’s an old saying: Opposition parties don’t win elections, governments lose them. This is especially true these days in Quebec. The spectacular surge of the Liberal Party, under its new leader, Philippe Couillard, is another example – with a twist.
Usually, it takes a few years for governments to beat themselves – typically more than one term in office. As time goes by, they accumulate mistakes, disappoint people and end up looking stale. The Parti Québécois government, however, is not even nine months old, yet poll after poll reflects widespread voter disenchantment.
The rate of dissatisfaction with the government is in the high 60s – as high as it was during the miserable last years of Jean Charest’s third mandate. And according to a recent Léger Marketing poll, the Liberals are now leading with 35-per-cent support, with the PQ at 27 per cent. This wouldn’t be enough to ensure a majority for the Liberals but it’d certainly be enough for the PQ to lose the next election.
Some observers were quick to attribute the Liberal surge to its new leader. I disagree. Since he was elected in March, Mr. Couillard has been barely visible. He doesn’t have a seat in the National Assembly, and he rarely appears in public since he’s focusing on rebuilding his party from the grassroots. Liberal positions on controversial issues such as language or mining regulations are defended by lacklustre MNAs. Most Quebeckers wouldn’t even recognize Mr. Couillard’s voice if they heard him on the radio.
Other observers believe the apparent rebirth of the provincial Liberals is part of a larger phenomenon that includes the federal Liberals’ rise in the polls under Justin Trudeau – the “rehabilitation of the Liberal brand,” in the words of Léger Marketing analyst Christian Bourque. But, for now, this is nothing more than a vue de l’esprit, a gratuitous hypothesis.
In Quebec, the provincial and federal Liberals have been separate entities – if not adversaries – for more than half a century. On many issues, the two parties don’t even share common values, and Quebeckers have always made a sharp distinction between them. Their respective fates are not at all linked, as demonstrated by election results of the past few decades.
Obviously, the Quebec Liberals’ current clout is essentially due to the PQ’s appalling unpopularity. Interestingly, Pauline Marois’s government is going through the same kind of nightmare as the French Socialist government of François Hollande, which has disappointed so many voters that, given a choice, a majority would rather see former president Nicolas Sarkozy back in the Elysée Palace.
Neither the French Socialists nor the PQ enjoyed the honeymoon usually granted to newly elected governments. Both have been characterized by erratic leadership, broken promises, botched policies followed by humiliating retreats, and cabinets in which too many ministers have been gaffe-prone neophytes or just plain incompetent. Both have been plagued with harsh criticism from left and right.
The PQ is in a worse situation, though, since it’s a minority government and has very little time to revamp its image. The party’s “anti-business” rhetoric has eroded its middle-class support, and its many turnabouts and compromises on key issues have alienated left-leaning supporters and hard-line secessionists. The PQ finds itself bleeding from both left and right flanks, as some of its supporters flock toward small ideological parties such as Québec Solidaire and Option Nationale while others go back into the Liberal fold.