Wednesday, March 28, 2007

The Many Pleasures of First Past The Post...

Still on the entertaining Quebec election results, Henri Bourassa's old broadsheet LE DEVOIR has a tantalizing article where pollster Jean-Marc Leger argues that it if weren't for the pesky fringe parties (like a suddenly relevant Quebec Green Party), Andre Boisclair would be Premier today, and not be fighting off the knives at his back.

According to Leger's logic, when you take away the PQ-siphoning votes of Quebec Solidaire and the Parti vert, a number of key seats (including Jean Charest's In Sherbrooke) suddenly fall into the hands of le parti quebecois. The revised seat totals, in an imagined election where the fringe were not a factor? PQ 48, Lib 44, ADQ 33.

Of course, the fringe vote was alive and well, and sunk Boisclair much like it helped sink David Peterson in Ontario many votes ago.

Over at La Presse, commentators are now bravely predicting the end of sovereignty, which is a bit ironic, considering that if it weren't for a few castaway votes, Boisclair may have been allowed to continue to dream about a 3rd referendum (as Premier!).

Long live the fringe voter! Is there a way we can import the UK's Raving Loony Party to all the provinces of Canada?

UPDATE: Paul Wells at Maclean's has challenged his readers to play with the Quebec vote totals some more, and they've found a few thousand vote scenario where Super Mario would have moved into the Premier's bunker...

I wonder if Kathleen Harris can be convinced to move from Florida to QC?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!