This time, it’s the Liberals haunted by a past leader

As the already long-underway campaign for the Oct. 1 Quebec general election finally entered its official phase on Thursday, it looked as though the only thing that might save Premier Philippe Couillard’s Liberal government from defeat was Russian intervention.

It wasn’t just that the Liberals were trailing in the polls, and incumbents tend not to come from behind in Quebec election campaigns to win.

And it wasn’t the additional, sheer incompetence of the once-vaunted Liberal organization. Couillard’s betrayal of François Ouimet was the most spectacular Liberal nomination blunder, but it wasn’t the only one.

The election date was fixed by law more than four years in advance. But it wasn’t until the last few days before the 39-day official campaign began on Thursday that the Liberals announced candidates in three desirable, predominantly English-speaking, Montreal Island ridings.

They’re good candidates. But by rushing them in late, their party made it look as though it had been holding their presumably safe seats for better candidates, and settled for them.

The most telling sign that the Liberals were going to lose the election, however, was the actions of Liberals themselves. And not only the 21 present Liberal members of the National Assembly, out of 68, who have declined to run again. Former leader Jean Charest’s public criticism of Couillard a few days before the election call was unprecedented.

The Parti Québécois is known for its “mothers-in-law” (though they’ve usually been male), former party leaders who publicly secondguess their successors. But even in the PQ, they don’t do it during an election period. And in the

No doubt Charest knew exactly what he was doing.

Liberal party, where loyalty has traditionally been valued above all else, they never do it — at least not until this week.

No doubt Charest knew exactly what he was doing when he decided to be interviewed on his former deputy premier Nathalie Normandeau’s Quebec City radio talk show on Monday. He would have known to expect questions on the campaign and the Ouimet affair.

And Charest would have known from media reports, if not from confidences of Liberal MNAs, that the caucus was already in a state of near-revolt against Couillard over his shabby treatment of their long-time colleague Ouimet.

In the interview, Charest defended Ouimet’s record and criticized Couillard’s treatment of the MNA, and the Liberal campaign in general. And he talked pointedly about the importance of personal relations in politics, something the aloof Couillard neglects.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Couillard has been Charest’s rival for more than a decade. As Charest’s popular health minister, Couillard won a power struggle with the premier over the location of the CHUM, the Université de Montréal teaching hospital, and was the obvious candidate to replace Charest as Liberal leader.

Charest, like his mentor Brian Mulroney, can carry a grudge. But he wouldn’t need a long memory to resent Couillard’s efforts to distance his government from Charest’s.

Even so, in the six years since Charest stepped down as leader, he has remained publicly loyal to the party, and until this week, to his successor. And his demonstration of loyalty toward Ouimet, who served under him, contrasted with Couillard’s betrayal. It’s doubtful that Charest would have attacked Couillard publicly if he thought the party had a realistic chance of winning the election, and that Liberals might blame him for jeopardizing it.

And it appears that Charest had read the mood of the party correctly, and that Liberals went into the campaign demoralized and pessimistic.

There was a conspicuous lack of response among Liberals to Charest’s attack on their present leader, no rush to rally around Couillard and demonstrate their eagerness to follow him into battle. Instead, Couillard was left looking estranged from his party, his leadership weakened. It appeared that Liberals agreed with what their party’s father-in-law had said about their leader, and what that said about their chances of victory.