Federalists won a close election in French-speaking Quebec on Monday, dashing separatists' hopes of holding a referendum on breaking away from Canada, election officials said.
According to projections, the federalist Liberals won 48 seats in Quebec's 125-seat National Assembly, followed by the greenhorn Action Democratique du Quebec (ADQ) with 41 seats and the separatist Parti Quebecois with 36 seats.
At the start of the campaign late last month, analysts believed federalist Liberal Premier Jean Charest would win a second term and stave off a plebiscite on Quebec independence for five years, a prescribed term.
But the separatist Parti Quebecois, which vowed to hold a referendum if it won the election, made great strides in the final stretch.
And an unexpected surge in support for the conservative ADQ, which favors more autonomy for Quebec but not independence, turned the contest into a three-way horse race.
In losing his majority, Charest is expected to face pressure to resign as party leader.
As well, a minority Liberal government now leaves the door open a crack to an early election and a possible vote on Quebec independence thereafter, with hostile separatists and Quebec nationalists in opposition.
"A few seats, a few thousand votes separated us from victory ... Millions of us still dream of an independent Quebec," Parti Quebecois leader Andre Boisclair said in defeat.
Quebec held and lost two referendums on breaking away from Canada in 1980 and 1995. Federalists led by Jean Charest narrowly won the second ballot.
"This has been a historic election," Charest said late on Monday, indicating that it would be up to all lawmakers to heal divisions in Quebec.
Throughout the campaign, voters expressed displeasure with Charest over broken promises to lower taxes and improve health care, leading to the Liberals' collapse.
The ADQ meanwhile whittled support from the two main parties by seizing on Quebecers' dream of nationhood and butterflies over letting go of Canada, offering a compromise alternative to the staunch federalists and hardline separatists.
Its third way had not been seen in Quebec politics since 1976 when the Parti Quebecois emerged to challenge the federalist status quo.
Prior to the election, the Liberals held 72 seats, the Parti Quebecois 45 seats and the ADQ five seats. One member was independent and two seats were vacant.
The ADQ was not expected to form a government, but won enough seats on Monday to ordain the first Quebec minority government since 1878 by rousing a dormant demographic -- rural nationalist conservatives.
After 1976, they had migrated to the Parti Quebecois, aligning themselves with urban social democrats in Montreal to try to build a Quebec nation.
In this election, with no referendum on the horizon and Parti Quebecois chief Boisclair deemed an anemic leader, Quebec conservatives gravitated to the ADQ.
Efforts by Canada's Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper to woo Quebecers also rallied the francophone hinterland.
Harper had allied himself with Charest, transferred billions of dollars to provincial coffers in a federal budget, and recognized Quebec as a "nation" within Canada in a symbolic House vote.
These initiatives were expected to give his federalist ally Charest a boost in the campaign, but unwittingly bolstered the ADQ's demands for more Quebec autonomy.
Emboldened by the unexpected rise of conservatives in Quebec and strong national polling, Harper could soon trigger a federal election.
But if he fails to satisfy the ADQ's demands for more Quebec autonomy, Harper may ultimately invigorate separatists.
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