PQ can win election – if they abandon a referendum
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is facing a dilemma: polls show that he can win the October election easily, but only if he gives up the promise of a referendum on the Quebec independence that’s the raison d’être of his party.
MarcG 10:13 on 2026-04-21 Permalink
Surely there’s a German word for this.
Kate 10:25 on 2026-04-21 Permalink
Zugzwang?
MarcG 10:53 on 2026-04-21 Permalink
Gonna send this video to PSPP
bob 18:44 on 2026-04-21 Permalink
In this the best of all political systems the PQ can maintain a funtamental position rejected by 2/3 of the electorate, have the electoral support of less than 1/3 of the electorate, and still win the election without giving up on its fundamental, unpopular position.
What this should reveal is that voting is no longer so much *for* things, rather than *against* things, like people or parties or positions. If you hate the CAQ, hate the Liberals, and hate QS, you can still vote for someone you hate slightly less, even though they might do something you don’t want, because you can vote against that when it comes.
Recall the Orange Wave, where the masses of Quebec did not in any way become more progressive or more left leaning, but saw fit to punish the parties that they perceived had wronged them with their scandal, ineffectiveness, corruption, etc. It was a kind of win-win, though not thoroughly good – you could bench the people you wanted to punish, but you would not get an actual NDP government doing all kinds of lefty things you don’t agree with – and in any case by that time the NDP had developed its policy of leaving Quebec alone to do its thing, party principles be damned (cf. @MarcG’s video).
So here we’ll have a government made up of people whose party was conceived for one main purpose, but that purpose will be put on a shelf. What is left for the party to do? Wallow in neoliberalism (i.e., theft), and all the usual corruptions. It is reminiscent of the old trope about the communists being the best dressed deputies in the post-war Italian Parliament.