The 28-Hour Candidate – Duceppe Apologizes for Brief Departure

I’m a big advocate of making a quick, sincere apology when you screw up.

So I can’t criticize Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe for the way he tried to recover from his brief flirtation with the Parti Quebecois.

The leader of the federal Quebec separatist party, he resigned his position Friday to take a run at leading the provincial party. Since the provincial party is the only one that could ever come to power, the Parti Quebecois job is seen as the more powerful of the two.

Problem was, his opponent had much more support, which became clear almost instantly. About 28 hours later, he dropped out of the provincial race. On Monday, he asked for his federal leadership job back, and explained his error:

"I stopped looking at objective facts – I had numbers at  hand – and said, ‘I am going for it.’ It was a mistake."

Duceppe, whose colleagues reinstated him as leader, admits he weakened himself with his very public flip-flop.

At least he took control of the story and made some decisive steps to fix it. Quick action is a big part of effective damage control. Imagine the continued damage that would have come from journalists hounding him for most of the week before he made he inevitably acknowledged his error.

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Tags: politics, leadership, mistake, apology, quebec, canada, public relations