Politics: Canada: Leader of Quebec's smallest party outshines the two main parties in election debate

In a free translation by refWrite's publisher Albert Gedraitis, Quebec daily Le Soleil in a French-language report by Jean-François Cliche says the audience at the Leaders Debate in the up-coming provincial election preferred Mario Dumont over the leaders of the two dominant parties.

The Leader of Democratic Action of Quebec, Mario Dumont, offered the best performance during the debate last nite, if one judges by the results of a poll by [three Quebec news organizations] CROP—La Presse—Le Soleil taken at the end of the evening.

In effect, 42% of those polled said the performance of Dumont was "excellent" or "very good," compared to 29% for the outgoinjg Prime Minister, Jewan Charest, and 27% for the Leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois. Andre Boisclair.

One francophone voice that always impresses me, disagrees with the polls. The blogger Jacques Hamel gives his analysis and concludes that the leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Jean Charest, the present Prime Minister, won the debate.

Somewhere in my reading today I came upon the estimate that 50% of the ADQ members are separatists who don't want to vote for the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) in its present incarnation; and that the other 50% are federalists with many conservative tendencies.