Record number of parties running in general election
With two months left before Quebec’s general election on Oct. 1, the province’s chief electoral officer, or DGE, has announced that at least 20 different political parties — a record — will be vying for votes.
As of Monday, the DGE website listed 20 registered political parties intending to run in October, a number that could increase since the Parti des sans droits (Party of those without rights) is on the waiting list for authorization.
Never in the province’s recent history have so many parties been ready to hit the campaign trail. During the 2012 and 2014 elections, a total of 18 parties registered — then a record number since the DGE began keeping count in 1973. Those numbers excluded parties that were registered but ran no candidates.
And even though previous records have been smashed this year, the total could soar, since 17 party names have been reserved, according to the DGE.
Among the parties registered for the coming vote are the obvious, mainstream political groups that hold seats in the National Assembly: the Coalition Avenir Québec, the Quebec Liberal Party, the Parti Québécois and Québec Solidaire. Also well known, but unelected, are the Quebec Green Party, the Quebec Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party of Quebec.
Even if Ottawa is preparing to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in October, the wellknown Bloc Pot party is preparing to run what may be its largest slate of candidates.
Party spokesperson Hugo StOnge says there are already 60 possible candidates who have stepped up and expects many more to do so. The high-water mark for Bloc Pot candidacies was in 2003 when the party ran 56 candidates.
Other parties that will compete for Quebecers’ votes are: the Alliance provinciale du Québec, Changement intégrité pour notre Québec (A Change for Integrity for our Quebec), Citoyens au pouvoir du Québec (Citizens in Power of Quebec), Équipe autonomiste (Autonomist Team), Parti culinaire du Québec (Quebec Culinary Party), Parti équitable (Equitable Party), Parti libre (Free Party), Parti marxiste-léniniste du Québec (Quebec Marxist-Leninist Party), Parti nul (Nothing Party), Parti 51, Québec cosmopolitain and Québec en marche (Working Quebec).
According to Louis Massicotte of Université Laval’s political science department, the multiplication of political parties is a phenomenon taking place in many Western states. “We’re seeing a vote that is far more fragmented than before. There are more political parties and it is more difficult to obtain 50 per cent of the vote,” he said.
In Quebec, the virtual disappearance of the sovereignty issue is helping to create new parties in the National Assembly and in election campaigns.
Massicotte thinks that the federal Clarity Act, which sets guidelines for a vote on Quebec independence, “settled things down.”
He also believes that the emergence of new issues and the present, complex state of society promotes the creation of political parties that target particular segments of the electorate.
“We see parties for the retired in Holland, regionalist parties in certain countries, I think there are more and more micro-clienteles, but our electoral system doesn’t really favour that kind of multiplication.
“The more parties there are, the less people vote,” he said. “It simply proves that society has become far more complicated and political combat cannot be reduced to something binary.”
Some of the province’s more original political parties include:
PARTI CULINAIRE DU QUÉBEC
Chef and party leader Jean-Louis Thémistocle runs a party with 235 Facebook followers and a political agenda that calls for a “gastronocratie ... where gastronomy dictates the choices of the State.”
PARTI 51
Beauce lawyer Hans Mercier resuscitated a party that enjoyed a fringe existence in the 1980s. The party ’s objective is to make Quebec the 51st state of the United States.
PARTI-LIBRE
Originally a municipal party in Saint-Sauveur, its objective, according to party literature, is to “free consciences.”
CITOYENS AU POUVOIR DU QUÉBEC
After having run as the Coalition pour la constituante, the party changed its name to the Parti des sans partis, then to Sans parti — Citoyens constituants and then, this year, to its present name. Whatever the label, the party ’s objective is to give Quebec its own constitution written by its citizens.