This is awesome!
Marois is a very calculating politician with decades of experience, she managed to seize control of her party when it was mired with division against her while the party was relegated to second opposition for the first time in its history (in fact, some who left are now begging to come back to the party and she is telling them to fuck off), managed to lead the PQ to a minority government, and is now heading for a majority after taking all sorts of decisions that journalists said would bring the PQ to its doom. Even Harper's government recently accepted the PQ's demands regarding job-training program recently. The PQ just accepted the reversal of the Endbrige pipeline, which totally fits in the PQ's goals (make Alberta dependent on Quebec). Harper is so freaked out now that
he even met Trudeau and Mulcair to tell them not to openly attack the PQ, fearing it will only make the PQ more popular.
She is smart and it is precisely the refusal to recognize this that makes it so easy for her to get her way, she is totally underestimated so people don't see her moves coming.
Marois is about to destroy PKP, her worst enemy. PKP is a former head of a media empire, he was likely (in part) behind in-party divisions that tried to take her down before, because he wanted to take her place and was preparing the field for it. When she came to power she made him president of the Hydro-Quebec counsel, a position without significant power, effectively shutting him up by making him think he is starting to climb the stairs to power, and make him dependent on her. Now that the PQ is heading for a majority, she gives him the chance to become minister, but he had to commit himself openly today to Quebec Sovereignty; don't think that was his choice to make that the main headline, the message is carefully controlled at the PQ! This was done to make sure he can
no longer move to another party later if he fails to become the PQ's leader, especially since it means that during the whole campaign the other parties will have attacked him constantly, and even more after when he becomes minister of whatever. He has stocks of his former media empire and she will NOT ask him to get rid of them, she will let the other parties destroy him after the election when in session on this precise issue.
Marois knows very well he won't wait 8 years or more to take his chance to lead the PQ and become prime minister. She knows he will try to outdo her during the next four years, he's too big not to. But he is fucked, she will do with him
exactly what she did with Daniel Breton. The parallels are actually quite incredible.
Daniel Breton was a popular pro-environment public figure who attracted a lot of attention before the last election. He was going to spell trouble for the PQ, he was likely to join Quenec Solidaire later on (the third county where QS was most popular was his). Marois proposed him a minister of natural resources post, so he became candidate for the PQ, won, and immediately after she moved him to minister of the parcs (a much less influencial one) after the other parties tries to make a big deal out of the fact that in the past he had made late payments on his rent and was once on unemployment benefits. It was a real joke, she had no reason to react to this, but Marois knew from the start that she would not leave him as minister of natural resources (just look at the direction the party took since election, which is in the opposite direction of what Breton was fighting for). So she basically knew he would become a big player for QS and against the PQ's environmental policies over the following years, so she made him minister, let him be attacked by the other parties over the most petty of issues, demoted him, and now he has nothing left.
Since then Breton is following party line and keeping quiet.
She will do EXACTLY the same with PKP. It's 100% obvious. If the PQ does well Marois will still present herself in four years, if it does poorly another party will win, so no chance for PKP for at least six to eight years
minimum. No way in hell would he wait that long and Marois knows it. This is a trick to get votes and then dump him for good and prevent him from ever being an opponent to her. She will take him from up high and make him low and ruin his political chances.
Note that this doesn't mean I approve of all of the PQ's decisions, and certainly don't like PKP and I know what his intentions are. But the above is fact, and you will see it happen word for word over the coming months.
edit: She did the same with the biggest loudmouths in her party; Lisée, Drainville, she gave them all hot potatoes to handle. None of them have a chance of moving up anymore, yet all of them are fighting as the most loyal candidates because they now need her. She is is a "great politician".
