Parti Qubcois interim leader to be announced tonight

Now that Pauline Marois has tendered her resignation as Parti Qubcois leader, the question within the battered sovereigntist party is who will be the right person to rebuild it.

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It won't be easy. The PQ suffered one of its worst defeats since the 1970s on Monday night when Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard won a majority government.

Two-thirds of Quebecers also flatly say they're not interested in another sovereignty referendum, one of the party's main goals.

The PQ's interim leader is to be announced on Thursday night. Nobody has come forward yet to claim the permanent job thatMarois won by acclamation in 2007.

However, PQ members seemed to get a preview of a few possible choices on election night.

In a twist that seemed to come out of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," Pierre Karl Pladeau, Jean-Franois Lise, Bernard Drainville and Nicole Lger came to praise Marois before she buried her own political career a few moments later.

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Lise and Lger extolled Marois' qualities and the party's determination to fight on, while Drainville and Peladeau made a pitch to sovereigntist hearts

Pladeau insisted the PQ caucus would continue to "defend the interests of Quebecers and the country" while Drainville was even more forceful, giving a stemwinder speech on the virtues of the goal to make Quebecers masters of their own destiny.

"We will never abandon it never," he said before leading the crowd in a chant of "we want a country."

Lise, Drainville and Pladeau have often been mentioned as eventual successors to Marois, although it has also been suggested Pladeau might not have the patience to toil in Opposition and rebuild a shattered party after so many years as a corporate titan.

Others who might take a run at the leadership are former cabinet ministers Leger, Sylvain Gaudreault and Vronique Hivon, although their profile isn't considered as high as those of Lise, Drainville and Pladeau.