Marie-Victorin: the warning of François Legault

If a by-election is not spring, that of Monday evening in Marie-Victorin nevertheless announces a difficult electoral fall for the Parti Québécois (PQ).But not only for him.

The victory of the caquist nurse Shirley Dorismond is final. Même si le PQ a obtenu un niveau d’appuis essentiellement semblable à celui des élections générales de 2018 (30 %), il termine cinq points derrière la Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), qui s’offre le luxe d’ajouter une 76^e députée à son caucus.

In addition, François Legault records this gain in a constituency which was presented in turn as a stronghold, a fortress or a pequist bastion.Regardless of the epithet, it must now be used in the past - and make the observation that the Parti Québécois has only one deputy west of Quebec (Véronique Hivon, who has still not confirmed if shewill be a candidate in October).

For a party already in the middle of a strong storm, the blow is hard."In six months, circumstances will not necessarily be also favorable to the government," said Parti Québécois chief Paul St-Pierre Plamondon on Monday evening.Maybe.We still have the impression that the last few weeks have been rather difficult for the government, in particular with regard to the Pandemic management file.Which did not prevent the CAQ from winning.

To console himself, the Parti Québécois will say that he was the only one to stand up to the CAQ on Monday evening.True.But that it is not at least competitive in such a constituency and with a star candidate (Pierre Nantel) would have been simply catastrophic.In this sense, the worst has been avoided.However, a defeat remains a defeat.

Similar observations apply to the Quebec Liberal Party, which ended the evening in fifth place (7 %), behind the Conservatives of Eric Duhaime (10 %).The expectations were zero for the liberals in Marie-Victorin, but this is a district where they had obtained 15 % of the votes in 2018, and even 26 % in 2014.

Monday's result is in line with what polls have been saying for months: it's going very bad for Dominique Anglade, especially among Francophones.And motivate troops - activists as candidates - will not be easy.

For Québec Solidaire (QS), the balance sheet is also halftone (we will not talk about Martine Ouellet, who finishes less than 2 % with his new party, Climate Québec).With 14.2 % of the votes, candidate Shophika Vaithyanathasarma recorded a score similar to what national polls grant to QS.But in Marie-Victorin, it is five points less than in 2018.As for the so-called or written remarks according to which Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois was now the only "real" adversary of François Legault, we do not see the slightest effect for the moment.

So there are two winners at the evening of Monday.With 10.4 % of the federated supports around an anti-health banner, curator Anne Casabonne has been doing well.Devance the Liberals represents a form of victory for a party which was nowhere in 2018, but which chief Éric Duhaime has completely transformed in recent months.Its support base is in the Quebec region, but he showed on Monday that he can disturb elsewhere.To monitor.

All in all, it is obviously François Legault who comes out a great winner of the partial - whose date he had chosen with care, taking advantage of the strategic advantage that gives law to the government.He tried to lower expectations Monday morning by mentioning that the CAQ just wanted to "do better" than the 28 % obtained in 2018, but he would not have mobilized half of the Council of Ministers to campaign with Shirley Dorismond without lookingvictory.

In recent weeks, François Legault has highlighted in very big lines how much he "needed Shirley to team up with [The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé].We need a nurse of her jurisdiction to the government, he said.I need her to give you better health services ".Nothing less-and it doesn't matter if this recruit will be able to sit barely twenty days before the summer break which will precede the electoral meeting.

But he also needed a victory to send a message to the other parties: no, the drop in CAQ supports in recent polls does not mean that the carpet slips under the feet under his feet.

Only one by -election is not proof of everything, and obviously does not decide the fate of an upcoming general election.Nevertheless, what the CAQ succeeded on Monday will think about the opposition parties.In a study published in 2017 in the Savant Political and Societies journal and which was combing fine all the by-elections held in Quebec between 1970 and 2015, researchers Ariane Blais-Lacombe and Marc André Bodet were drawing some conclusions that shed light on the voteMonday.

Normally, voters vote less for the government party during the by -elections than in the general elections, noted the authors.Partial therefore benefits the opposition parties, which "channel popular dissatisfaction".It was not the case on Monday.The researchers also claimed that in Quebec, "the by -elections can be considered as referendums on the government": this is what history demonstrates ... and that is also what François Legault will want to remember.

Formerly critical of the CAQ (as much for its position on systemic racism as in relation to the management of the pandemic), Shirley Dorismond will now have the opportunity to make his voice heard inside the caucus.The Prime Minister visibly expects a lot from her.The good news for the two is that the study by Blais-Lacombe and Bodet shows that deputies elected during a partial have a re-election rate higher than that of other elected officials (87 % against 72 %).

It may give him a real chance to help the government "give better health services".

The original version of this article was modified on April 14, 2022 to indicate that the constituency of the deputy Véronique Hivon (Joliette) is located to the west, and not to the east, from Quebec.

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