MONTREAL, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- The French-Canadian province of Quebec gave a majority government to the Liberal party Monday night with the separatist Parti Quebecois as opposition.
Less than an hour after polls closed at 8 p.m., the Liberals, led by third-time incumbent Premier Jean Charest's party, had secured 68 seats in Quebec's 125-seat National Assembly, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said.
The Parti Quebecois separatist party led by Pauline Marois was running second and Mario Dumont's Action Democratique du Quebec suffered a major defeat with only seven seats, the CBC said. A minor separatist party had secured one seat in early reporting.
The Liberal win is the third consecutive one for Charest, a former federal Conservative Cabinet minister. Charest called the snap election in the fall, saying the global economic crisis required him to have a majority government.
Various national media reported Charest's political savvy shown in the run-up to a federal political showdown that led to Monday's early resignation of Stephane Dion, the federal Liberal party leader, might lead to Conservatives wooing Charest back to the federal Conservative fold in the event political favor falls away from minority Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
