Mise à jour d'élection du Québec

The dust has settled in the Québec election. While the Liberal party did emerge as the first minority government in the province in 130 years, some of the facts I reported last night have changed.

First of all, when the votes were all tallied Liberal leader Jean Charest had been re-elected in his riding, which means he remains premier of the province. I imagine he must be a little shocked, though, because he only received 37% of the vote, a mere .4% more than his PQ challenger.

Secondly, the Action Démocratique du Québec holds 41 seats and now forms the Official Opposition. Not bad for a party that only held 5 seats when the writ was dropped. ADQ leader Mario Dumont will be in the spotlight now: how he performs as leader of the opposition will undoubtedly determine whether the ADQ is a viable option in the future or whether these results were just a one-time protest against the two established parties.

Thirdly, the Parti Québécois received the least amount of votes of the main three parties, marking the first time since the 1970s that the PQ were neither formed the government nor served as Official Opposition. I do not confess to being familiar with all of the esoteric elements of Québec provincial politics, but I wouldn't be putting any money down on André Boisclair remaining leader of the party for the next election.
the final distribution of seats is as follows:

Here are the final results:

• Liberals - 48 seats (33.08% of the popular vote)
• Action Démocratique du Québec - 41 seats (30.80%)
• Parti Québécois - 36 seats (28.32%)
• All other parties - 0 seats