Peladeau says it’s too early to discuss PQ leadership run to replace Marois

QUEBEC – Media magnate Pierre Karl Peladeau says it’s too early to talk about whether he will seek the permanent leadership of the Parti Quebecois.

Peladeau says the party has a lot of work and reflecting to do in the next few months after its crushing election defeat this week.

The Quebecor (TSX:QBR.B) tycoon made the comments as he entered a PQ caucus meeting in Quebec City today where an interim leader will be chosen.

Pauline Marois announced after Monday’s election she would step down as PQ leader.

The party won only 30 seats in the 125-member legislature and captured just 25 per cent of the popular vote.

Some of the rumoured candidates for the interim position are former deputy premier Francois Gendron and ex-cabinet ministers Agnes Maltais and Stephane Bedard.

Gendron is the longest-serving member of the national assembly, having first been elected in 1976.

Raymond Archambault, president of the PQ’s executive council, said there is no urgency to hold a leadership race right away.

Potential candidates for the top job include Peladeau and former cabinet ministers Jean-Francois Lisee, Bernard Drainville and Sylvain Gaudreault.

Gaudreault and former health minister Rejean Hebert did not reject the idea when reporters asked them Thursday if they were interested in the leadership.

Peladeau is seen as a polarizing figure by many and his enthusiastic embracing of sovereignty at his campaign launch on March 9 is credited with throwing the PQ so far off message into a debate on independence that it never recovered.

It was not immediately clear if Marois would attend the meeting to choose her interim replacement.

Many of the dejected-looking Pequistes were reluctant to go into a deep analysis of the election outcome, which saw Philippe Couillard’s Liberals win 70 seats to form a majority government.

But some complained the campaign had been turned into a referendum on a future sovereignty plebiscite that Marois insisted wasn’t in the cards.

Others blamed the media.

Peladeau said the party has a lot of work to do and it will have a busy four years before the next provincial election in 2018.

Hebert said the days after the election are too emotional to offer an objective analysis of the campaign.

Francois Legault, whose Coalition for Quebec’s Future party won 22 seats, reached out to PQ members at his own party caucus meeting in Drummondville.

He invited PQ members to join the Coalition because he said their party is in a dead end with its emphasis on sovereignty. Legault said the Coalition is an example of modern nationalism.

(By Nelson Wyatt in Montreal)