Could the next premier of Quebec be François Legault? Gilles Duceppe? Jean Charest, for a fourth straight mandate? Or maybe, after all, Pauline Marois?

Until last month, Charest’s dismal ratings, as well as polls showing Marois would lead her Parti Québécois to an easy win in the next Quebec election, suggested a PQ win was a virtual certainty.

But with power in their grasp, mutiny broke out in PQ ranks. Four of its leading lights resigned to sit as “independent sovereigntists,” complaining that Marois was focused on winning power rather than achieving Quebec sovereignty. A fifth PQ member, Benoît Charette, also left, complaining that Marois was obsessed with sovereignty; in resigning, Charette had kind words for François Legault, the founding president and CEO of the charter airline Air Transat who was a PQ minister, but now, Charette says, he has given up on sovereignty.

Legault resigned from the Marois shadow cabinet in 2009 but has re-emerged as head of a coalition for Quebec’s future, proposing a feel-good platform of “change.” He has talked about transforming his coalition — whose members include former members of all Quebec’s major parties — into a new provincial party. In a June CROP poll, Legault’s phantom party was supported by 40% of respondents, equalling the support for Marois in an April CROP poll. Marois dropped to third place in June with 29%, with Charest, previously written off, pulling into second place with 35%.

Charest’s recovery, Marois’s decline and the fact that Legault does not have a party have spurred speculation Charest could take advantage of the situation to call an autumn election. Halfway through his five-year mandate, the premier has denied this.

As premier, Charest is focused on his plan nord, which calls for mining, energy and forestry projects to open up Quebec’s north. Charest is counting on his northern vision to dispel voter doubts about his stewardship before he calls an election.

For more than 40 years, Quebec politics has been a standoff between federalists (who argue Quebec can get what it needs to prosper within Canada) and sovereigntists (who insist that independence is the only way for French in Quebec to survive).

With about two weeks left before the May 2 federal election, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe told a PQ policy convention that a strong showing by the Bloc, followed by a PQ election win, would make “everything possible” — meaning: a new sovereignty referendum.

Duceppe, still predicting the Bloc would take about 50 of Quebec’s federal 75 seats, pledged his loyalty to Marois. No more. Jack Layton’s New Democrats came from nowhere to win 59 Quebec seats, leaving the Bloc with just four. Duceppe now is available, if the PQ chooses to drop Marois.

But Charest still has a chance, thanks to division within PQ ranks. Legault remains the wild card in the next Quebec election — and Marois has not left the building. IE