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Quebec separatists riven over independence tactics

After a surprisingly strong showing in the recent federal parliamentary election, Quebec separatists have suddenly begun fighting among themselves over strategies to win independence for the province.

The new struggle over tactics to form a Quebec state -- after defeats in two independence referendums since 1980 and the electoral loss of the separatist provincial government last year -- is emerging as the crucial issue for the Parti Quebecois as it opens a potentially bitter process to choose a new leader.

Jacques Parizeau, the former Quebec premier, began the first public challenge to current party strategy this week by calling on the party to run in the next provincial parliamentary election pledging to form a new government that would prepare for speedy independence without first holding a referendum.

In an essay published on Monday in the Montreal daily La Presse, Parizeau argued that the Parti Quebecois should try to write a provisional constitution and create a separate Quebec citizenship as soon as it retook the provincial government. Only then would a referendum be held to ratify the national constitution.

"Many sovereigntists have concluded that the game is not playable under the current conditions and that we need to find another way," wrote Parizeau, whose forces were narrowly defeated in the last separatist referendum in 1995 but who remains an influential force in the party.

The next provincial election is expected to be in three years, and the separatists believe they have a strong chance of defeating Jean Charest, the unpopular Liberal premier.

The separatist cause seemed to be strengthened during the June federal parliamentary election when the Bloc Quebecois, a close ally of the Parti Quebecois won 49 percent of the Quebec vote and 54 of 75 seats that the province holds in the House of Commons.

Bernard Landry, the former Quebec premier who is struggling to hold on to Parti Quebecois leadership after his landslide defeat last year, immediately announced his opposition to the Parizeau plan. He said a retreat from a referendum would deny a Quebec state the "legitimacy and dignity" it would need.

Landry and some other Parti Quebecois leaders have soft-peddled the separatist issue in recent elections in an effort to win moderate swing voters.
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