Quebec votes Monday with five parties potentially winning seats for first time in 50 years

Quebecers will vote Monday in an election where five parties are positioned to have members elected to the legislature for the first time in 50 years, marking an unusually fragmented field.

The Parti Québécois, led by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, has pulled away from the pack as the campaign closes. The race has been dominated by economic uncertainty, cost of living pressures, and the looming prospect of a third sovereignty referendum. A PQ victory would represent a comeback for a party that won only three seats in 2022—its lowest total since the party was founded in 1968.

St-Pierre Plamondon has been discussing asking voters to give the party a majority mandate and has promised to hold a referendum within four years if the PQ forms government. "In my mind, it is very clear that once the election is over, if people give you the mandate to be premier, you have a moral obligation to be the premier for absolutely everyone," he said Friday in Quebec City. He has signalled he is not taking the result for granted.

Political science professor André Lamoureux at Université du Québec à Montréal said the PQ has become a "party of refuge" for nationalist and French-speaking Quebecers seeking change from the incumbent Coalition Avenir Québec. The CAQ dropped in polls in recent days, partly after leader Christine Fréchette suggested Americans were trying to help sovereigntists take control of the province—a claim she was forced to walk back.

Conservative leader Éric Duhaime, a former right-wing radio host, has focused his campaign around Quebec City and hammered rivals for being too bureaucratic and wasteful. He has promised large tax cuts and a slash to government spending, and asked electors to give him balance of power to block St-Pierre Plamondon's planned sovereignty referendum. Despite these divergent strategies, Lamoureux noted that "it still comes down to five parties, even though there have been significant changes over the last five or six days." Polls show most Quebecers do not favour separation.