QUEBEC - Buoyed by a small upsurge in poll support and a vulnerable Parti Quebecois leader, Premier Jean Charest began taking the final steps Thursday to send Quebecers to the polls.
Charest has called an emergency session of the legislature for Tuesday to allow Finance Minister Michel Audet to table a budget. An election call is expected to follow soon after for the end of March.
The timing is as good as it will ever be, says Daniel Salee, a Concordia University political scientist.
"Whatever the problems may be with their record, right now the opposition doesn't look all that great either,'' he pointed out.
Not so long ago the prospect of going to the polls was comparable to a trip to the gallows for the Quebec Liberals.
There was palpable anger in the streets over what many considered Charest's heavy-handed and misguided efforts to reform the state and failure to make deep tax cuts.
But the Liberals have benefited from momentum in the last few months that saw them climb in the polls at the expense of Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair, who has been battered within his own party over his leadership.
On Saturday, the Liberals are expected to unveil their election platform and, based on a series of radio ads the party began running recently to tout their time in power, the emphasis for the campaign will be on the environment, health and education.
"Chances are those will be the main themes for everybody else," said Salee.
"It seems to be the main themes of the day. The question is whether their record is good enough on those issues.''
Salee isn't the only political observer who expects an imminent election.
"I'm pretty sure that meeting has only one issue on the agenda and that's the election,'' said Pierre Martin, a University of Montreal political scientist, of the Saturday confab.
The Liberals had originally been scheduled to meet in a regular council meeting on March 23 but then cancelled that meeting for the one this weekend.
Charest, who has been busy making spending announcements in the last few months, has also enjoyed cozy relations with the Prime Minister Stephen Harper's federal government and likely expects to benefit from largesse for Quebec in the upcoming federal budget -- likely to be tabled during the Quebec campaign.
"This will make the Liberal government look like some sort of saviour for having solved definitely the problem of fiscal imbalance,'' Martin said, but he warned that Charest shouldn't expect voters to have a short memory.
"Don't forget the many, many months of negative opinion toward the Liberals and that can actually go back to haunt them. Most voters will probably approach the campaign thinking, 'well, I'm not too sure about the other guy but look, for three years I've been completely negative on your policies'."
But Salee said he's not too worried about Charest's Liberals.
He pointed out the PQ is not the only sovereigntist party any more and its leader has been embroiled in turmoil since the beginning of the year.
Charest is a better campaigner, he added.
"I think you will see that Jean Charest has more substance in a way,'' he said. "Even if he has not been known as a man of substance, he's probably got more substance than Boisclair.''
Boisclair has been beat up over his leadership in the last few months, ironically facing similar criticism to that thrown at Charest before he was elected premier.
Boislclair's experience and wisdom have been questioned. He had to admit that participating in a video spoof of the gay cowboy movie "Brokeback Mountain'' probably wasn't the most astute thing to do.
His past cocaine use has come back to haunt him again and many say he has failed to bring new ideas and new people into the PQ.
But Martin says the damage from this should not be overestimated and that Boisclair has nowhere to go but up in a campaign likely to focus on the Liberal record.
