Quebec's separatist movement is back in power for the first time in over a decade, and the party that governed the province for the last eight years just got wiped off the map. The Parti Québécois, led by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, will form a minority government after Monday's election, projected by CBC News to win 59 of the National Assembly's 125 seats — a staggering rise from the three seats the party held going into the vote.

The collapse of the governing Coalition Avenir Québec was just as dramatic. CBC's rundown of the results shows the CAQ projected to win zero seats, four years after it captured a commanding majority under then-premier François Legault. CAQ leader Christine Fréchette lost her own seat in the rout.

A minority government, not independence

Plamondon's PQ fell short of the majority it would need to govern alone, and well short of anything resembling a mandate for the sovereignty referendum the party has long championed. CNN's report on the results notes the separatists won the province but fell short of the outright majority that would have strengthened any future independence push. Québec Solidaire and the Liberals, now led by Charles Milliard, split most of the remaining seats, while Conservative leader Éric Duhaime held his own riding in Bellechasse.

"FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OVER A DECADE, QUEBEC WILL BE GOVERNED BY THE SOVEREIGNTIST PQ — BUT WITHOUT THE SEATS TO GOVERN ALONE."

The result is a dramatic reversal from four years ago, when the CAQ's business-friendly, nationalist-but-not-separatist platform crushed both the PQ and the Liberals. Analysts had flagged Quebec as a wild card heading into Monday's vote — a province that could, in theory, start inching toward another independence referendum, though Plamondon has signaled he intends to govern cautiously given his minority status.

What happens next depends on whether Plamondon can find reliable partners in a fractured legislature. With no single party holding a majority, every piece of PQ legislation — from the budget to any eventual referendum legislation — will need votes from Québec Solidaire, the Liberals or individual Conservative members to pass.

The Parti Québécois has not governed the province since Pauline Marois' brief minority government a decade ago, and Monday's result marks the party's strongest showing in a generation. Plamondon rebuilt the PQ's coalition largely around affordability and immigration concerns rather than an explicit independence pitch, a strategic shift from the party's historic focus that appears to have paid off with voters who had drifted to the CAQ in recent cycles.

The result also reverberates beyond Quebec's borders. A sovereigntist government in Canada's second-most-populous province, even a minority one, revives questions in Ottawa about future constitutional fights and federal-provincial relations that have simmered for decades. Federal party leaders across the spectrum offered carefully worded statements Monday night, acknowledging the democratic result while steering clear of any language that could be read as either encouraging or dismissing Quebec's long-running sovereignty debate.