Parti Québécois leadership candidates: friends or foes?

It is, at times, hard to tell who is friend and who is foe for the candidates in the Parti Québécois (PQ) leadership race.

At a caucus meeting in Quebec City on Wednesday morning, MNAs responded to questions about leadership candidate Martine Ouellet being booed at last weekend’s debate in Sherbrooke.

READ MORE: Pierre Karl Péladeau quits PQ leadership, politics

Ouellet argued some of her colleagues in the room that night took part – they deny that – but that doesn’t mean the Parti Québécois caucus is a cohesive unit.

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She also accused her two opponents in the leadership race, Jean-François Lisée and Alexandre Cloutier, of not playing fair and claiming she’s running a distant third.

READ MORE: PQ leadership candidates accuse front-runner of playing dirty

“I think that’s really old politics. There’s no indicator that can say there’s a leader in that race.”

Share this on X Click to share quote on X: "I think that's really old politics. There's no indicator that can say there's a leader in that race."

However, just moments after she delivered her criticism of Cloutier and Lisée, Ouellet warmly greeted Lisée as he walked by.

READ MORE: Parti Québécois will vote for a new leader to replace Péladeau on Oct. 7

He assured her: “I want you to be in this race; it’s important for me.”

It appeared, for a moment, there was a sudden change of heart.

“Beyond the debates, we are friends and we share a lot together and we’re going to work together,” Lisée explained.

Share this on X Click to share quote on X: "Beyond the debates, we are friends and we share a lot together and we're going to work together," Lisée explained.

There’s just one problem – the display of sudden cordiality drew the attention away from Cloutier’s media scrum, which was cut short.

READ MORE: As PKP quits politics, others jockey for Parti Québécois leadership

It was not the first time one of the candidates stole attention away from the others.

At a caucus meeting in Gatineau two weeks ago, it was Cloutier’s entourage that interrupted Ouellet when they started singing him “Happy Birthday.”

READ MORE: Sylvain Gaudreault named Parti Québécois interim leader

Ouellet denied she was in anyway trying to get him back.

Also in the race for the party’s top job is Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, a lawyer who has no prior political experience.

Joliette MNA Véronique Hivon was forced to drop out of the race to recover from an acute viral infection.