Quebec general election, 1981
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The Quebec general election of 1981 was held on April 13, 1981, to elect members of the National Assembly of the Province of Quebec, Canada. The incumbent Parti Québécois, led by René Lévesque, won re-election, defeating the Quebec Liberal Party, led by Claude Ryan.
The PQ won re-election despite having lost the 1980 Quebec referendum on sovereignty-association, the party's proposal for political independence for Quebec in an economic union with the rest of Canada. To some extent, they were helped by Claude Ryan's old-fashioned campaign style: he refused to tailor sound bites for the evening news and ran a generally TV-unfriendly campaign.
The Union Nationale, which had won 11 seats in a modest comeback in the 1976 general election, was wiped off the map in this election, and never won another seat in any subsequent election. It is now disbanded. The party were not helped by the fact that its leader in the 1976 election, Rodrigue Biron, had resigned from the party and joined the Parti Québécois.
Results
| Party | Party Leader | # of candidates | Seats | Popular Vote | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Elected | % Change | # | % | % Change | Parti Québécois | René Lévesque | 122 | 71 | 80 | +12.7% | 1,773,237 | 49.26% | +7.9% | Liberal | Claude Ryan | 122 | 26 | 42 | +53.8% | 1,658,753 | 46.07% | +12.9%
Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Union Nationale/row | Union Nationale | Roch LaSalle | 121 | 11 | - | -100% | 144,070 | 4.00% | -14.2% | Workers Communist | 33 | * | - | * | 4,956 | 0.14% | * | Freedom of Choice | 12 | * | - | * | 4,955 | 0.14% | *
Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Marxist-Leninist/row | Marxist-Leninist | 40 | * | - | * | 3,299 | 0.09% | * | Libertarian | 10 | * | - | * | 3,178 | 0.09% | * | United Social Credit | 16 | - | - | - | 1,284 | 0.04% | -4.6% | Workers | 10 | * | - | * | 1,027 | 0.03% | * | Communist | 10 | * | - | * | 768 | 0.02% | * | Independents/no designation | 29 | 4,570 | 0.12% | ||||||||||||
| Total | 525 | 110 | 122 | +10.9% | 3,600,097 | 100% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Source: Elections Quebec (http://www.electionsquebec.qc.ca/fr/) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Note:
* Party did not nominate candidates in the previous election of information not available.
See also
- List of Quebec premiers
- Politics of Quebec
- Timeline of Quebec history
- List of Quebec political parties
External link
- CBC TV video clip (http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-73-651-3575/politics_economy/quebec_elections/clip7)