MONTREAL - Quebec Premier Jean Charest fancies himself the comeback kid of Canadian politics but this summer he'll sweat out leadership questions that could ice his political career.
While Charest insists he's not going anywhere, questions about his future have been swirling since the Liberals were almost defeated over their post-election budget.
Angered by his insistence on delivering a $950-million tax cut, Quebec's opposition parties voted against the budget and only agreed to not bring down the government after an intense round of last-minute negotiations.
The brinkmanship cost Charest enough support, and fed enough rumours about his demise, that he was forced to clear the air.
"I will be the leader of the Liberal party for the next general election in Quebec,'' Charest insisted last week. "My leadership has not suffered.''
However, his cause was not helped by a recent CROP poll that suggested his health minister, Philippe Couillard, would have been the choice of 45 per cent of Quebecers to succeed Charest as Liberal leader.
The results prompted Couillard to deny he was seeking to oust his boss.
"Mr. Charest knows he can count on my full support,'' Couillard told reporters. "I repeat that I am entirely loyal to Mr. Charest.''
The poll also indicated that the Liberals continued to lag behind the Parti Quebecois and Action democratique du Quebec among francophone voters _ leaving many rank-and-file members anxious about their chances in the next election.
All this does not augur well for the premier's vacation plans, as some think it will take more than a summer of barbecue photo-ops to resurrect his fortunes.
"He has to think about his strategy for the fall in order to appear more conciliatory,'' says Frederic Bastien, the Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the Universite de Montreal.
"It's not a question of communication or image in the media, it's a question of policy.''
Charest loves to point out the many times he's been counted out. In the 1997 election, he led the federal Conservatives back from the dead, boosting the party's seat count from two to 20.
In Quebec, Charest is consistently unpopular in polls but has still managed to win two elections in a row.
The political hijinks over the budget almost guarantees that Quebecers will head back to the polls within a year, and Liberals may be reluctant to go through a leadership race before then.
"The Liberals are a bit more conservative on leaders than the PQ is,'' says Andre Lecours, a political scientist at Concordia University.
He points out that most Liberals are already skeptical about their chances of winning the next election, with or without Charest.
"There may be the sense of letting Charest take one for the team,'' Lecours says. "If he loses, then everyone can start afresh.''
Quebec's legislature is expected to wrap up its current sitting by the end of the month, leaving Charest with time to move on popular issues such as his proposed gun-control legislation.
He will then have several months to regroup and develop a strategy for the next election.
"I think for Jean Charest it's a good thing it's June, and not January,'' says Bastien. "He has a period of between two and three months where it will be more calm.''
He may not have the chance to do much suntanning but a long summer could be the answer to Charest's political woes.
