The PQ managed to keep François Legault’s old seat in a by-election in Rousseau last night. The Liberals haven’t made a dent there since Bourrassa was in power and Legault was nothing if not a party heavyweight, so the result shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone. And even though, as Chantal Hébert points out, the ADQ vote appeared to collapse in the Liberals’ direction rather than the PQ’s, the abysmal turnout should preclude anyone from reading too much into a result that was never really in doubt.
Still, despite not being under much of a threat from anyone in the riding, not losing has apparently become reason enough for the PQ to celebrate. Cue Pauline Marois, who delivered the best line of the night: “We’ve had enough of moral victories, so now we have a real victory!”
All those moral victories—they sure get exhausting, don’t they?