Infighting hasn't hurt support for the Parti Quebecois, whose members said at a caucus meeting Saturday that they're confident they can forge ahead and win the next provincial election.

"We're in the playoffs and i think we're in a good position to win the next general election," said PQ MNA for Montreal-area Gouin riding Nicholas Girard.

A Leger Marketing-La Presse poll published Saturday said 25 per cent of Quebecers would give their vote to the PQ. The support hasn't waivered from two weeks ago, before the PQ was set into turbulence caused by the possibility of Gilles Duceppe's return to politics. A CROP poll, conducted last week, gave 21 per cent support to the PQ, already up three points from another survey made last month.

The latest survey, taken Jan. 23 to 25, in the days following Duceppe's confirmation he would not run as PQ leader, suggests a three-way battle between the PQ, the Liberals and the Coalition Avenir Quebec.

The survey gave Francois Legault's CAQ 32 per cent of the vote, followed by the Liberal Party at 26 per cent. The CAQ peaked at 39 per cent in recent months.

The poll was good news for PQ members at the party's weekend convention in Montreal.

"I think we're going to come out of this weekend more united than we have been for a long, long time," said Marie-Victorin MNA Bernard Drainville.

Drummond MNA Yves-François Blanchet said he was confident the PQ would form the next government and could even be a majority.

MNA for Abitibi-Ouest, Francois Gendron, said the trust between his party and voters was on the road to recovery, thanks to the integrity of leader Pauline Marois.

Marois rallied her troops at the opening speech Friday night, mocking what says are the similar platforms of both the Liberals and the CAQ.

She also slammed Prime Minister Stephen Harper, calling him the worst person to fill Canada's top job since Pierre Trudeau, adding that the conservatives are wrong in their approach to the environment, crime and military spending.

In a surprise at the convention, Mauricie resident Muguette Paillé, who stole the spotlight at the leaders' debate for the last federal election, came to lend her support for Marois.

But the reality remains that the CAQ is still holding the lead. Legault was seen by 25 per cent of respondents of the poll as the most suitable next premier in the province. Jean Charest earned 19 per cent of the vote and Marois trailed with 15 per cent.

Political analyst Jean Lapierre said anything can happen in the provincial political game.

"The game has just started in Quebec. The three parties are now in a really good fight and anything could happen in this province," he said.

This may have less to do with PQ policy and more to do with the CAQ, said Lapierre.

Legault has said repeatedly that his party will not hold a referendum for 10 years but Francois Rebello, a former Pequiste for left the party for the CAQ, has been talking up sovereignty in recent weeks.

"The only thing that he talks about is that he is still a sovereignist and the coalition could help achieve sovereignty, so he just burnt all the arguments that the coalition had before," said Lapierre.


The survey was conducted online among 1,001 people. The margin of error is 3.1 points, 19 times out of 20.

With a report from La Presse Canadienne