It was August 28, 2022. Dominique Anglade, then leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, officially launched her campaign. Alone in front of her coach, without a single candidate around her. Oops.
For the PLQ, it was a sad day of anticipation of the humiliating historic defeat they would suffer on the evening of the following October 3rd.
It was reduced to 14.37% of the votes. Even the Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire garnered more votes than the oldest political party in Quebec’s history.
Indeed, history will remember that 2022 was irrevocably its annus horribilis for the PLQ. By far the cruellest year in its long existence since it was founded in 1867.
Abandoned by the Francophones, its traditional Anglophone and Allophone vote nevertheless allowed it to retain its valuable status as official opposition.
Given François Legault’s stubborn popularity and the long desert crossing that lies ahead for Liberal troops, it’s still not nothing. But since the election even the result has worsened.
After clinging to all logic, broken by bad decisions and several internal disagreements worthy of a very bad variety show, Ms Anglade finally left politics.
seriously confused
This is the minimum service she could render her poor party. A party apparently seriously confused since their bitter defeat in 2018 under the Couillard-Barrette tandem.
However, there is no guarantee that the PLQ, with a possible new leader, will manage to survive until the October 2026 election, just as nothing says to the contrary.
After all, four years in politics is a long time. Very long…
Nevertheless, the Liberals are far from over the mountain. A Léger/Le Journal poll published on December 16 sounds like a catastrophe. With the francophones, it collapses with 6% of the voting intentions. Literally.
Even among non-Francophones, the PLQ falls below that at 36th place with just 41% support. Far, far from the 80% gold of the Charest era…
new breath?
Let’s put it bluntly. Given the scale of the disaster, a serious internal autopsy is not even possible. It’s difficult to do a detailed autopsy when a political corpse is so mutilated.
What is left for Liberals if they are to have a future is therefore entirely in the hands – and in the minds – of the person who will lead them through 2026.
We can’t get out of this for the PLQ. The choice he will make for a next leader, or a next, will be downright vital to him…or deadly. Everything will depend on what that person can or cannot bring him as a new breath.
And not just among Francophones, seduced by the CAQ’s post-sovereign nationalism. But also with anglophones and allophones who, deprived of the great struggle between yes and no, no longer really know what ideological wood the Liberal Party of Quebec is warming up to.
By 2026, the many crises that the CAQ faces – language, health, housing, inflation, education, etc. – could also inspire candidates for its future leadership if they are able to come up with more innovative ways of doing things.
It will be seen and followed…
