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Great big mess: How Jean Charest lost his seat, then won it again |
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Monday night was an emotional roller coaster for Sherbrooke candidates and their supporters as first Radio Canada, and then its sister station CBC, declared that Premier Jean Charest had lost in his own riding.
After Charest regained the lead and won a majority of more than 1,300 votes, journalists for the national broadcaster were forced to admit that reports of Charest's demise in the riding - as Mark Twain so aptly put it - were exaggerated.
Shortly after 10 p.m., with 160 of 212 polling stations counted, Parti Quebecois candidate Claude Forgues had a lead of more than 900 votes. His supporters were jubilant.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere at Liberal party central was downright funereal. It became more somber at 10:25, when Radio Canada television's Bernard Derome - whose reputation for calling election results was unsullied till now - announced Charest was defeated in his own riding of Sherbrooke.
By the time Radio Canada revised itself about an hour later, Forgues had already given his acceptance speech.
"Even I don't believe it. Never in my wildest dreams," an incredulous Forgues told reporters.
Despite a hard-fought campaign, Forgues never imagined he would dethrone the premier in his hometown stronghold. "We couldn't believe it," a longtime PQ organizer told The Record. "We actually believed we had dislodged the premier."
Disbelief was reflected across town at Liberal campaign headquarters on the first floor of the Delta Hotel, where supporters had spent two hours watching their candidate trail Forgues, who took the lead early and maintained it throughout most of a suspense-filled evening.
But at the home of Claude "Red" Charest on Portland Street, the atmosphere was one of indignation.
It's the Charest patriarch's home, where his son the longtime Sherbrooke MNA, and his family (wife Michele and three children), as well as longtime supporters and party strategists, were watching the election results come in.
Family members reported "Red" Charest, whose grey hair belies the redhead he once was, was infuriated by the premature call. So was everyone else in the room.
"We knew it wasn't true," said Charest's riding assistant Julie Vinette on Tuesday, still angry at Radio Canada.
Vinette said the Liberal inner circle was aware that results from advance polling stations had not been added to the tally - and so was Radio Canada.
"It's inconceivable that Radio Canada would announce that news and create that atmosphere," she told The Record.
"With his experience," said Vinette of Derome, who later apologized for the blunder on live television, "it's hard to understand how he could do such a thing at the end of his career.
"TVA didn't play that game. They waited for the final results."
On Tuesday, Radio Canada's website reported that Charest was declared defeated "due to an imbroglio linked to the vote counting." Liberals say the situation would be better described as: the Radio Canada decision desk screwed up.
Over at the Elections Quebec Sherbrooke office, longtime electoral officer Jacques Codere explained ballot boxes from advance polling stations were brimming because some 7,123 electors had chosen to vote early.
"That's almost double the number from the last election," Codere told The Record, explaining that because the increase in the number of voters was unpredictable, they had not added to the number of advance polling stations.
Codere said the advance boxes contained some 710 ballots each, compared to an average of 275 in each of the Monday election day urns.
Because of the large number of ballots, Cod?re said they received special permission from Quebec's Chief Electoral Office to start counting the advance poll ballots at 7 p.m., rather than waiting until the polls closed at 8.
"It's a well-known custom that the advance polls always favour the Liberals," Codere said.
Many advance poll voters are seniors, and Liberal organizers are better at getting their supporters out to vote early.
Codere said it took more than twice the time to count the advance poll boxes. "That's why the majority changed. But it's the first time I've seen a majority turn over so quickly," Codere said.
Charest, who was first elected to the House of Commons in 1984, was re-elected in 1988, 1993 and 1997. After making the leap into provincial politics, he won the provincial riding of Sherbrooke in 1998, 2003, and again last night.
Charest held onto his seat Monday with 36.6 per cent of the vote, compared to 32.8 per cent for his PQ rival Forgues.
The ADQ's Michel Dumont, president of the Quebec Association for the Wrongfully Convicted, ran third with 18.5 per cent of the vote; while Quebec solidaire candidate Christian Bibeau and Green Party hopeful Steve Dubois ran neck in neck for fourth and fifth place with a little more than 6 per cent of the vote each. Independent Hubert Richard held up the rear with less than 1 per cent or 115 votes.
By Rita Legault
March 28 |
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Montreal Canadiens
