An opinion poll shows the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) heading for a victory in the September 4 provincial elections in the French province of Quebec in Canada.
The poll conducted by Leger Marking shows PQ Leader Pauline Marois ahead with 33 percent of voter support — enough to form a minority government.
The center-right Coalition Avenir Quebec followed with 28 percent, with the ruling Liberal party lagging behind in the third place with 27 percent.
Leger Marketing polled 1,929 Quebecers over 19 years of age, between August 22 and 24, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
Responding to the results of the survey, Liberal leader Jean Charest dismissed the figures as unreliable. “The polls are not reliable, and they’ve never been. How many times do we have to demonstrate it?,” he said.
Marois, meanwhile, called on “sovereignists and progressives” to unite under the banner of the leading separatist party.
“I want to tell Quebecers that are listening, if you want to get back to the goal of creating a country, only a majority government can do it, a sovereigntist government of the Parti Quebecois,” she said at a news conference.
PQ has promised to hold a referendum on the separation of Quebec from Canada if 850,000 Quebecers sign a petition.
Students in Quebec have been protesting university tuition hikes since February 2011. The protests later turned into a larger movement dubbed the “maple revolution,” which reveals deeper social unrest.
A vote held on whether Quebec should break away from Canada was held in 1995, in which separatists lost by less than a one-percent margin.
© Copyright Press TV – Published at Set You Free News with license
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