A third term for liberal Justin Trudeau or a trade with moderate conservative Erin O’Toole? Canadians go to the polls this Monday to decide who will form the next government in a general election with an uncertain outcome.
The first polling stations opened in Newfoundland and Labrador, on the Atlantic coast, at 8:30 a.m.
Like canada covers six time zones, the last citizens to cast their vote are in the province of British Columbia, on the Pacific coast, where the polls will close at 19 local (early Tuesday in Argentina).
The top two candidates voted late in the morning in front of the cameras after a 36-day campaign. But the winner may not be known at night, because the election promises to be very closed and a large number of voters chose to vote early or by mail.
In Toronto, Ontario, Canada, a line to vote. Photo Bloomberg
After voting, Trudeau said to be “serene”. “We worked very hard during this campaign and Canadians are making an important decision,” he told AFP surrounded by his children and his wife, Sophie Grégoire.
Early elections
The 49-year-old prime minister He called early elections in mid-August to try to regain the majority he lost two years ago. But, according to polls, he is losing his bet: he reaches a maximum of 31% of voting intentions, just like his main rival, who not long ago was unknown to the general public.
Trudeau suffers the erosion of power; the “Trudeaumania” of 2015 looks very far away.
During the campaign, he affirmed that the return of the conservatives would be synonymous with a step backward, especially on the climate issue.
Erin O’Toole Conservative Party candidate. Reuters photo
Pero Erin O’Toole promised renewal and made a strong campaign of the center.
“I am not happy with this vote, Justin had said that he would not call elections during the covid and finally, as soon as he believed that it was the right time to have a majority, he called them. So I really think he lied to us“said Douglas O’Hara angrily at the entrance to his electoral college in Montreal. For the first time in his life, this 73-year-old man will not vote for the Liberal Party.
But other voters stand out how Trudeau handled the health crisis, and that the country that has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
“For me, managing the pandemic is the most important issue in this election. And I think the prime minister handled it well“said Kai Anderson, 25, a voter in Ottawa, the federal capital.
Suspended
As in 2019, this “absolutely total suspense” makes analysts say that “most seem very difficult to reach for anyone.”
“It’s hard to imagine a tighter career“Felix Mathieu, a professor of politics at the University of Winnipeg, told AFP.
The nearly 27 million Canadians over the age of 18 who can vote this Monday they must elect the 338 members of the House of Commons.
If neither of the two great parties that have alternated in power since 1867 is able to obtain a majority in Parliament, the winner will have to form a minority government.
In this case, the future prime minister, liberal or conservative, tYou will have to work with the smaller parties to govern.
One of them is Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party (NDP, left), to which almost 20% of the voting intentions are attributed. Or the Bloc Québécois, a Quebec independence party led by Yves-François Blanchet.
The last major game in the race, Annamie Paul’s Greens, struggled to convey a weather emergency message, while fighting for his own survival due to problems of unity, image and finances.
“The question at the beginning was to know if the liberals deserved to have a majority government. But now the question is whether they deserve to remain in power“said Professor Daniel Béland, from McGill University.
It remains to be seen whether voters will go to the polls in droves for this low-interest election, which takes place at a time when COVID-19 cases are on the rise in some Canadian provinces.
AFP Agency
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