Monthly Archives: August 2012

The Netherlands

Rutte and Roemer hope to consolidate support in Dutch election, as Europe watches nervously

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As Dutch voters and the wider international world begin to pay attention to the Sept. 12 election, it’s becoming clear that ‘anti-austerity’ and ‘pro-austerity’ forces are coalescing behind the party of prime minister Mark Rutte (pictured above, top) and the Socialistische Partij (SP, the Socialist Party) of Emile Roemer (pictured above, below), leaving both newer and traditional parties of the Dutch political landscape floundering. 

The election, which is typically followed by months-long coalitions talks, will have a significant impact on the ongoing political and economic eurozone crisis: a Rutte victory would bolster German chancellor Angela Merkel in her cause for Europe-wide austerity, while a Roemer victory would embolden a growing ‘pro-growth’ cause that includes French president François Hollande and, to some degree, Italian premier Mario Monti.

After a relatively quiet election season, Rutte, leader of the Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy), is back in the spotlight with a promise to increase an existing tax break for workers (arbeidskorting) by €300 in 2013 and by €1,000 in 2014.  The move is designed to sweeten the otherwise harsh effect of budget cuts that would lower the 2013 budget deficit to within 3% of GDP — last year’s budget was 4.7% of Dutch GDP, a shortfall that undermined Dutch credibility on the European stage.  Since Rutte came to power in a minority coalition government in 2010, he has made broad cuts across the entire spectrum of government spending, and the Dutch retirement age is set to rise from 65 to 67.

Rutte’s attempt to pass more budget cuts in the Netherlands in April led to the fall of his government, when Geert Wilders, the leader of the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, the Party for Freedom) refused to support further cuts — although the PVV had not been a formal member of the coalition, it had provided crucial outside support to Rutte’s government.

Wilders, who rose to prominence and much electoral success in 2010 on his anti-Muslim, anti-immigration platform, is campaigning in 2012 on a full withdrawal from the euro and from the European Union altogether (even though the Netherlands was one of the original six members of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951).  For whatever reason, however, voters are turning away from Wilders — much to Roemer’s benefit.

The subtext to Rutte’s drive to cut the Dutch budget is simple — he wants to retain the country’s pristine ‘AAA’ rating and keep the country out of any sovereign debt crisis and the ballooning yields that follow.  Above all, Rutte is determined to keep the Netherlands within the terms set by the Maastricht Treaty that establishes the 3% target.  The Netherlands is just one of four eurozone countries that has maintained its ‘AAA’ rating from each of the three major credit ratings agencies (joining Germany, Luxembourg and Finland).  Continue reading Rutte and Roemer hope to consolidate support in Dutch election, as Europe watches nervously →

Assorted Links

First Past the Post: August 23

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Anything tú can do, yo can do better.

Former Reuters correspondent Barry Malone remembers Meles Zenawi.

An interview with André Glucksmann on the future of Europe.

India gets its own ‘gate’ — Coalgate — and it’s starting to become a serious matter for Manmohan Singh and his government.

Canada remembers the former leader of the New Democratic party Jack Layton one year after his death.

Mali has a new government.

 

Basque Country, Spain

Snap Basque elections may return nationalists back to regional government

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With Europe expected to face its most tense times yet this autumn in its three-year-running eurozone crisis, and with Spain expected to seek a bailout from the European Union in the coming months, the Basque Country — a key autonomous region in Spain — is headed to the polls in October.

Patxi López, the president (or lehendakari) of the Basque government (pictured above), called early elections Tuesday.

The election for the 75-member Eusko Legebiltzarra (or Basque parliament) will be held on October 21.

So what’s likely to happen? And what will it mean for Spain?

Essentially, the fight will come down to a four-way fight: (1) López’s federalist Basque socialists, (2) the federalist conservatives, (3) the traditional Basque nationalists and (4) a new leftist coalition of Basque nationalists.  For now, at least, the chances that López will continue as lehendakari of the Basque Country currently seem slim.

López became lehendakari after the 2009 regional elections, when his party, the Partido Socialista de Euskadi – Euskadiko Ezkerra (the PSE-EE, or the Socialist Party of the Basque Country) joined in a coalition with the Partido Popular (the PP, or the People’s Party).  The López-led coalition marked the first time in the three decades of democratic elections in the Basque Country that the region had not been governed by the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (the Basque Nationalist Party or the EAJ-PNV — in Basque, the Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea).

That coalition unraveled after the PP won the Spanish general election in November 2011 — the local PP leader Antonio Basagoiti demanded that López not use his position to oppose newly-installed prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who has accelerated budget cuts at the federal level.  López, however, has opposed Rajoy’s planned cutbacks, especially as regards health and education.  Without PP support, López’s government commands just one-third of the seats in the Basque regional parliament.

The election will be held the day after the anniversary of the permanent ceasefire agreed with the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), an armed Basque nationalist group that had engaged in many shootings, bombings and kidnappings.  That ceasefire, agreed by then-prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a political ally of López, was one of the final landmarks of the Zapatero government before the Rajoy government replaced it.  López is certainly hoping that voters will have that ceasefire on their minds on voting day, and that they will give his regional government credit for greater security and stability.

In 1978, the Basque Country — like Catalonia and Galicia — was granted the status of a nationality within Spain, as Spain wrote its new constitution, lurched toward democracy and began to emerge from the brutal and federalist four-decade dictatorship of Francisco Franco.  But sentiment for autonomy and/or independence runs strong in the Basque Country, and that sentiment has all too often turned violent in the past, even after 1978. Continue reading Snap Basque elections may return nationalists back to regional government →

Ireland

Who is Michael Higgins? (And about that YouTube takedown…)

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So this clip of Irish president Michael D. Higgins from a call on conservative Michael Graham’s radio show taking down the “tea party” movement in the United States has gone viral in the last 24 hours.

The first thing to realize is that it’s from May 2010.  Three things follow from that:

  • It’s the height of the “tea party” movement in the United States.
  • It’s the height of the U.S. right’s opposition to the health care bill in the United States proposed by President Barack Obama, when many on the U.S. right were calling out every country from Ireland to Canada to Switzerland to Great Britain as having “socialist” health care schemes.
  • It’s before the October 2011 presidential election in Ireland, so it’s from before the time when Michael Higgins became the Irish head of state.

In his time as president, Higgins hasn’t picked any fights, in Ireland or abroad, however.  As head of state, he does not direct policy — that job falls to the taoiseach (Ireland’s prime minister) Enda Kenny.

In the clip, Higgins comes across as passionately defending a strong role for government, but seems a little unhinged (or passionate, depending on your viewpoint) when it comes to disparaging the tea party movement, the American right and former Alaska governor and former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, in particular:

The tactic is to get a large crowd, to whip them up, try and discover what is the greatest fear, work on that and feed it right back and you get a frenzy.  This tea party ignorance that is being brought all around the United States is regularly insulting people who have been democratically elected.

Higgins proceeded to call Graham “just a wanker whipping up fear.”

Oh my!

To the extent Higgins seems frustrated and perplexed by the tea party movement and the American right generally, in the clip above, it’s because that strain of particularly American laissez-faire, anti-government politics is so foreign to his own social democratic tradition.

Higgins comes from the Labour Party in Ireland, which is the major leftist force in Irish politics and which has a strong social democratic tradition (in terms of comparison, it would be closer to the New Democratic Party in Canada than to the Liberal Party).

Ireland’s two main parties, historically, have been centrist (Fianna Fáil) and center-right / vaguely Christian democratic (Fine Gail).

Before his presidential election, Higgins had long served in the Dáil (Ireland’s parliament) for the Labour Party, and during the Fine Gail-led government of 1994 to 1997, Higgins served as minister for arts, culture and the Gaeltacht (i.e., the predominantly Irish-speaking regions of Ireland), where he established an Irish-language television station and notably, scrapped Section 31 of Ireland’s Broadcasting Authority Act, which actually forbade the Irish media from broadcasting the voice of any Sinn Féin member.

The 2011 election was a bit odd, given that Fine Gail’s candidate never really connected with voters and Fianna Fáil didn’t really offer up a candidate.  The election followed a period of “two Marys” — Mary McAleese, who served from 1997 to 2011 and Mary Robinson before her, who served from 1990 to 1997, both of whom were independent candidates and both of whom changed the Irish presidential concept into something even more abstract and apolitical than the line of Fianna Fáil politicians who preceded them.

For much of the campaign leading up to the election, another independent, Irish senator David Norris (and a Joyce scholar!) was the frontrunner for the presidency, and would have become the world’s first openly gay head of state, but fell behind after being implicated in a scandal.

Accordingly, the race came down to Higgins, independent Seán Gallagher (essentially a placeholder for Fianna Fáil-minded voters) and Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Féin candidate.  Higgins ultimately defeated Gallagher by 39.6% to 28.5%, although the race seemed a lot closer than the final tally indicates — Gallagher’s last-minute admission of collecting campaign funds from a Fianna Fáil fundraiser led to a fall-off in his support.

Canada, Quebec

Live-blogging the Québec debates: Marois v. Legault

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I’ll be live-blogging tonight’s debate — the third and final debate of a series of one-on-one debates — between Pauline Marois, leader of the leftist, sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ) and François Legault, leader of the newly formed, sort-of maybe center-right Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ).       

Sunday night featured a four-way debate, Monday night featured a raucous one-on-one between Marois and premier Jean Charest, the leader of the centrist, federalist Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ), and Tuesday night featured a debate between Legault and Charest.

Québec’s voters go to polls on September 4 to choose 125 members of Québec’s Assemblée nationale.

Read Suffragio’s prior coverage of the Québécois election here.

So that’s a wrap. Marois is queen of the status quo, Legault is the queen of the caribou. Oy. On to Sept. 4.

What’s striking is that they spent so little time bringing down Charest tonight. I wonder if that was a strategic mistake for both Legault and Marois, especially with today’s Forum poll showing the PLQ with a renewed 35% lead over the PQ (29%) and the CAQ (24%). In any event. Full live blog after the jump.

* * * *  Continue reading Live-blogging the Québec debates: Marois v. Legault →

Malta

Dom Mintoff, ‘architect’ of Maltese politics, dies at 96

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Dom Mintoff, a former Maltese prime minister and the towering figure of Maltese politics since the 1960s, has died at 96. 

Mintoff (pictured above in 1972) was leader of the Labour Party from 1949 to 1984, and he was known in Maltese as il-Perit, ‘the architect.’

Always divisive and always entertaining, he served as prime minister from 1955 to 1958 (while Malta remained a British colony) and again from 1971 to 1984.

In his first stint as prime minister, Mintoff was a proponent of full integration of Malta into the United Kingdom — he resigned in 1958 when those negotiations failed.  Mintoff had demanded the same level of social services for Malta, and the UK failure to grant that concession led to Mintoff’s turn toward independence.  Malta gained full independence in 1964, exactly 150 years after becoming a crown colony of the British empire.

As prime minister, Mintoff brought Malta’s standard of living and welfare state (including a pension system) closer in line with continental Europe, despite Mintoff’s propensity for nationalization of various industries in Malta.  Today, however, Malta is not only a member of the European Union but also a member of the eurozone, as of 2008.

The second time around, though, Mintoff was no slouch with Britain and the West, and his foreign policy zig-zags made him unpopular in the West and in the United Kingdom especially.  He skillfully played both sides of the Cold War against each other, often to Malta’s benefit.  Mintoff kicked the British governor-general and NATO out of Malta upon his election in 1971, and he negotiated to closure of the last UK military base in Malta in 1979.  He refused to allow either the United States or the Soviet Union to hold a base in Malta (an island strategically located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea).  Furthermore, Mintoff widened the circle of Maltese diplomacy to include China and other ‘non-aligned’ nations and developed a particularly strong relationship with Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi — he once said Malta was part of the Arab world.

Mintoff’s legacy to Malta is as an architect of the current stable democracy there (even if it was neither entirely stable or democratic with Mintoff in charge).  For the world, he’ll remain one of the more ornery and colorful figures of the Cold War era.

One Maltese reporter’s remembrances can be found here.  MaltaToday‘s full coverage here, including an in-depth piece assessing his complicated legacy.

Assorted Links

First Past the Post: August 22

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The Kremlin is lashing out at Western support for Pussy Riot, the three-woman punk-rock activists jailed last week for two years (pictured above).

Mitchell Prothero in Foreign Policy has a great takedown of Hezbollah’s role in the latest Lebanese tumult.

With six weeks to go, Venzeulan president Hugo Chávez holds a narrow 49% to 47% lead over Miranda state governor and Mesa de la Unidad Democrática presidential nominee Henrique Capriles.

Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras asks for more time in an interview with Germany’s Bild. English summary from Spiegel here.

Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi will visit the United States on Sept. 23.

A new Forum Research poll shows Jean Charest and the Liberals are once again in the lead in Québec with 35% to just 29% for the sovereigntist Parti québécois.

Liberal Democratic leader Nick Clegg is coming under pressure from his own party’s rank-and-file to step down before the United Kingdom’s next expected election in 2012.

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has emerged in advance of the Sept. 12 election, calling for a €1,000 tax break for every worker.

Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta’s fight against president Traian Băsescu shows no signs of abating.

Photo credit to Andrei Stenin of RIA Novosti.

Germany

Merkel tops Forbes list of top 100 powerful women

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German chancellor Angela Merkel is the most powerful woman in the world in 2012, according to Forbes magazine.

It’s a bit whimsical, but that’s probably the right call, considering that no one person has more power, probably, to determine whether the eurozone sticks together or falls apart.

Also on the list are several women of important to world politics:

  • U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton (#2),
  • Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff (#3),
  • Indian National Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi (#6),
  • International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde (#8),
  • Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (#16),
  • Burmese National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (#19),
  • Australian prime minister Julia Gillard (#27),
  • Malawi president Joyce Banda (#71),
  • Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (#80),
  • Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (#81), and
  • UAE minister of foreign trade Shiekha Lubna Al Qasimi (#92)

Predictions, questions and thoughts:

  • Where is Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt? Robbed!
  • And where is Icelandic prime minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the world’s first openly lesbian head of government? Also robbed!
  • Josefina never had a chance.
  • Too soon for Pussy Riot, I suppose.
  • Might Parti québécois leader Pauline Marois make it on next year’s list if she wins the Sept. 4 election in Québec and schedules a referendum on Québec’s independence?
  • Next year, Park Geun-hye could well be South Korea’s new president, which would make her automatically top 20, I presume.
  • Also next year, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hannelore Kraft become Merkel’s chief opposition.
  • If Silvio Berlusconi makes a comeback in Italy, why not his favorite MP Michaela Biancofiore and the rest of Silvio’s angels?

United Kingdom

Is Kenneth Clarke — and his experiment with prison reform — finished in British politics?

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Longtime observers of British politics will note with some alarm recent reports that justice minister Kenneth Clarke may be headed out of UK prime minister David Cameron’s cabinet, pursuant to a widely expected cabinet reshuffle in early September.

To contemplate this is to see the final curtain drawn on one of the ‘big beasts’ of British politics in the past three decades — as has been noted, Clarke won his first ministerial role when UK chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne was just one year old.

The Telegraph reports that Cameron is considering replacing Clarke with Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary (and the ill-fated former leader of the Tories from 2003 to 2005), or Nick Herbert, a junior justice minister.  Even more odd is the way in which Clarke has issued a statement on the potential reshuffle:

“I have never had any conversations of any kind with the Prime Minister or anyone acting on his behalf about a reshuffle. I am totally laid back about a reshuffle and am waiting to see whether or not it affects me,” he said.

Clarke is, simply put, one of a kind: a bloke in a party of toffs.

Second to Boris Johnson, perhaps, Clarke connects with the British people in a way that few Tories have managed in recent times. Continue reading Is Kenneth Clarke — and his experiment with prison reform — finished in British politics? →

Canada, Quebec

Live-blogging the Québec debates: Charest v. Legault

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I’ll be live-blogging tonight’s hourlong debate — the second in a series of three one-on-one debates — between Québec premier Jean Charest, the leader of the centrist, federalist Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ) and François Legault, leader of the newly formed, sort-of maybe center-right Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ).

Sunday night featured a four-way debate and last night featured a raucous one-on-one between Charest and Pauline Marois, the leader of the leftist, sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ).  Tomorrow’s final debate will feature Marois and Legault, and Wednesday will bring showcase Marois and Legault.

Given Charest’s feisty, aggressive tone against Marois last night, I expect to see the same against Legault, who himself is a former PQ minister.  Legault left the PQ to form the CAQ late last year, and I would expect Charest to make the argument that Legault is a closet sovereigntist and that the CAQ has been too vague about its plans for government.  I expect you’ll also see Charest attack Legault for cuts made to Québec’s health care system — Legault once served as minister for health and social services under PQ premier Bernard Landry from 2001 to 2003.

Québec’s voters go to polls on September 4 to choose 125 members of Québec’s Assemblée nationale.

Read Suffragio’s prior coverage of the Québécois election here.

Well, it was another exciting debate and the last debate for Charest.

Charest managed to come across as a little less aggressive tonight, but perhaps a little more effective — he could point (and he did!) to Legault’s past experience in government and contrast it with the (unreliable?) positions Legault has taken as the leader of the CAQ.

Legault seemed more effective, perhaps, than he did on Sunday night, but seemed less sure throughout the night.  He’s not as good a debater as Charest.

I wonder if Legault’s strong defense of French and Bill 101 at the end of the debate will leave a bad taste in anglophone voters’ mouths — he’ll need those if the CAQ is to win the election.

All in all, I think Charest did a strong job defending his government and an even stronger job attacking the CAQ’s platform (or the slipperiness of the platform vis-a-vis Legault’s record).

Full live-blog after the jump.

* * * *  Continue reading Live-blogging the Québec debates: Charest v. Legault →

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First Past the Post: August 21

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Jeffrey Goldberg thinks a personal visit from U.S. president Barack Obama could forestall any unilateral Israeli action against Iran.

A look at Indian-Peruvian relations.

Reuters looks at possible successors to Ethopian prime minister Meles Zenawi, who died Tuesday.

Renewed clashes in Sunni-dominated Tripoli, in Lebanon’s north, are increasing cautions about Syrian spillover.

Dutch Socialist Emile Roemer is bearish on the euro crisis.

FT Alphaville turns to the Dutch elections.

Romania’s Constitution Court invalidated the referendum on impeaching the president, Traian Băsescu, and prime minister Victor Ponta accepts the ruling.

Longtime pro-Euro Tory and justice minister Kenneth Clarke seems nervous in advance of a planned cabinet reshuffle expected from UK prime minister David Cameron in early September.

Liberal Party fundraiser Jean-Paul Boily calls on Liberal supporters to support the newly-formed Coalition avenir Québec in the Sept. 4 election as a strategic manuever to stop a sovereigntist Parti québécois government.

NOTE: I will be live-blogging tonight’s Québec election debate between Liberal premier Jean Charest and CAQ leader François Legault.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi has died

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The prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, has died after a long illness. He was 57.  Deputy prime minister Haile-Mariam Desalegne will be sworn in as acting prime minister.

Since taking power in 1991, Ethiopia really hasn’t known a leader in the post-Cold War era other than Meles.  He inherited a country decimated from a grinding famine in the 1980s and a war with Eritrea (that resulted in Eritrea’s independence in 1991) and transformed it into a stable regional power in a country that’s relatively untouched by the colonial experience, but which is the second-most populous African nation after Nigeria.

Meles’s death comes just days after the death of the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, Abune Paulos, at age 77, who was himself appointed by Meles.

Meles came to power after participating in the coup that removed Mengistu Haile Mariam, a leader of the Derg that governed Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987 — Mengistu ruled in his own right through 1991. He presided over the writing of a new federalism-based constitution for Ethiopia in 1994, and he kind of opened Ethiopia to the ritual of regular elections, however rigged in favor of Meles.

In his last election in 2010, Meles and his Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF, or የኢትዮጵያ ሕዝቦች አብዮታዊ ዲሞክራሲያዊ ግንባር) won the majority in the Ethiopian parliament, despite widespread allegations of fraud.  His victory in the relatively fairer 2005 election was met with massive — and sometimes violent — protest, which Meles met with a general crackdown on political dissidents.  For all the stability that Meles brought to Ethiopia, democratic norms and institutions were not among his chief reforms.  For example, opposition leader Birtukan Medeksa was imprisoned from 2007 to 2010.

But Meles can certainly be credited with taking steps to strengthen Ethiopia’s economy — it has grown fantastically since Meles came to power, but for two blips in 1998 and in 2003.  Last year saw the lowest GDP growth since 2004, but it still managed to top 7%.  Ethiopia’s significant growth belies its horrific starting point as one of the poorest countries on the planet — its GDP per capita is just barely over $1,000. Continue reading Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi has died →

Canada, Quebec

Live-blogging the Québec debates: Charest v. Marois

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I’ll be (hopefully — giving my French quite a test!) live-blogging tonight’s hourlong debate between Québec’s premier since 2003, Jean Charest, the leader of the centrist, federalist Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ) and Pauline Marois, the leader of the leftist, sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ). 

Last night featured a four-way debate, tomorrow will see a debate between Charest and François Legault, leader of the newly formed Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), and Wednesday will bring the final debate between Marois and Legault.  Québec’s voters go to polls on September 4 to choose 125 members of Québec’s Assemblée nationale

Read Suffragio’s prior coverage of the Québécois election here.

So that was exciting! Jean Charest, so smiley in the Sunday night debate, sneered throughout tonight’s debate.  Whether on corruption, on tuition fees, on Plan Nord, on debt, on sovereignty, Charest went on the offensive all night long in a very aggressive manner (“Madame Marois! Madame MAROIS!”).

I’m not sure that will play so well with viewers, but it’s clear there’s no love lost here and that Charest knows he’s behind, and that he’s going to have to fight back against both the PQ and the CAQ in order to win the election.

Marois looked poised and more measured, even when playing offense.  But her party still has no clear competing budget plan, and she’s still not being clear on whether she’s seek a referendum if the PQ wins in two weeks.

I’m not sure whether the debate will have changed any minds — Charest looked angry and evasive and aggressive, and Marois still has no answer when it comes to the biggest doubt voters have about her party winning office.

Tomorrow night, we’ll see Charest and Legault — if anything, Charest has been more aggressive in his attacks on Legault in the past week or so, so I think it’s very likely we’ll see the fully adversarial Charest tomorrow as well.

Full live blog below the jump.

* * * *  Continue reading Live-blogging the Québec debates: Charest v. Marois →

Assorted Links

First Past the Post: August 20

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Spiegel interviews Russian blogger Alexi Navalny.

Park Guen-hye wins the formal nomination of the Saenuri Party in South Korea for the presidential election in December.

The new cold war on the South China Sea.

What comes next for fallen Chongqing leader Bo Xilai?

The French right wants a comeback for French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Former Front de gauche presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is calling out the Hollande administration for doing too little in its first 100 days.

Greece’s government may have found €13.5 billion in cuts.

The Constitutional Court of Romania will decide tomorrow whether to validate the referendum on president Traian Băsescu’s impeachment.

 

Canada, Quebec

Charest comes out swinging in first Québec debate

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The party leaders of each of the four main political parties in Québec held their first debate Sunday in advance of the province’s September 4 election, with three additional one-on-one debates to follow tonight, Tuesday and Wednesday.

It’s always difficult to tell whether debates will change the dynamic of an election campaign, and it’s no different in this election.

Going into the debate, it was expected that the leader with the biggest target would be Jean Charest (pictured above, second to left), the leader of the centrist, federalist Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ) and premier of Québec since 2003.

The PLQ, according to recent polls, is struggling against the leftist, sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ), and the new sorta-center-right-ish, sorta autonomous-ish Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) is polling an increasingly strong third place — a poll released Friday night showed the PQ with 35% to just 30% for the Liberals and 25% for the CAQ.  Most ominously, the poll shows that for the first time, anglophone voters are not supporting the Liberals en masse: although the Liberals still lead among non-francophone voters with 62% to just 20% for the CAQ, that result marks a fairly staggering loss for a party that normally has a monopoly on native English speakers, which comprise 10% of the Québécois electorate.

So on Sunday night, it was thought that PQ leader Pauline Marois (pictured above, second to right) and CAQ leader François Legault (pictured above, far left), as well as spokeswoman for the far-left Québec solidaire, Françoise David (pictured above, far right) would all target Charest — on his record on tuition fees, on a damaging and ongoing corruption inquiry, on his controversial plan to develop northern Québec.

That quite didn’t happen, as Marois and Legault and David targeted one another — and an aggressive Charest went on the offensive against both Maoris and Legault.  For example, he went directly at Marois and Legault for supporting cuts in the PQ-led administration of the 1990s (Legault is a former PQ minister), he attached the PQ for its past corruption scandals and he went directly on the attack on the issue of sovereignty:

Mr. Charest charged that the PQ’s main objective will be to achieve sovereignty and hold a referendum “as quickly as possible. She has set up a committee to achieve it,” he warned.

Tonight, Charest will face off in a one-on-one debate against Marois.  Tuesday night will feature Charest and Legault, while Wednesday night will feature Marois and Legault.

The French-language La Presse‘s recap and the English-language Montréal Gazette‘s recap largely concurred: Continue reading Charest comes out swinging in first Québec debate →