Former MNA Jean-Martin Aussant won’t run for the leadership of the Parti Québécois, Le Devoir reported on Thursday.
Aussant advised his colleagues at the Chantier de l’économie sociale, a Montreal-based non-profit organization where is executive director, by email that he’s sticking around because he won’t run for leadership of the party, Le Devoir reported.
However, he did not respond to a media request for confirmation of his decision.
Aussant quit the PQ caucus in 2011 to found the sovereignist party Option nationale, which he left in 2013.
His name has circulated since Pierre Karl Péladeau announced earlier this week that he was resigning as leader of the PQ after less than year in the position.
On Thursday, MNA Martine Ouellet became the second person to public confirm that she’s thinking about running as a candidate.
“I received a lot of encouragement, whether by Facebook, by email, by telephone. People say, ‘We need someone who has an economic profile’,” she said in a telephone interview.
Ouellet, who was unable to muster her caucus colleagues’ support in her run against Péladeau for the leadership, was unable to say whether that’s the case again now.
“I sense a lot of opening,” she said.
Ouellet plans to present a plan on Monday for “intelligent” economic development, a “project that has been in development for a long time,” for the next PQ convention in 2017.
She said the event had been planned for a week, before Péladeau announced his departure on Monday.
“We certainly re-evaluated the situation this week, but we decided anyway to go ahead with the event on Monday with stakeholders from all walks of life,” she said. “But it’s clearly on an economic development proposal, it’s not on the leadership race.”
