Christine Fréchette has been chosen as the new CAQ leader and premier-elect of Quebec, replacing François Legault at the head of the party and province.The former cabinet minister defeated Bernard Drainville Sunday with 57.9 per cent of the vote by 15,833 party members. The result was announced at a gathering in Drummondville, east of Montreal, about an hour after the polls closed.Fréchette, 56, becomes the first person at the helm of the Coalition Avenir Québec other than Legault, who created the party in 2011 and has been its sole leader.After winning back-to-back majority governments, Legault announced in January he would step down as polls showed his party was deeply unpopular.Fréchette, who resigned as economy minister to challenge for the top job, is now tasked with overcoming that unpopularity just six months out from an election. Polls show the CAQ hovering below 10 per cent, and a popular poll aggregator is predicting the CAQ will not win a single seat in October.If Fréchette manages to build momentum for the CAQ, it could be at the detriment of the Quebec Liberals, thus facilitating a victory for the Parti Québécois.Fréchette, a former PQ staffer herself, focused her leadership campaign on economic issues, including on reopening the debate around shale gas and hydraulic fracturing.She promised to limit immigration, improve access to housing and health care, and reduce the size of the government.Born in Trois-Rivières, Fréchette was named CAQ MNA for Sanguinet in 2022. Under Legault, she was minister of immigration, economy and energy, regional economic development and was responsible for the Montreal and Montérégie regions.A graduate of HEC Montréal and Université Laval, Fréchette was a member of the board for the Conseil du statut de la femme, a government body responsible for research on gender equality, prior to officially entering politics.She was deputy chief of staff to former Parti Québécois minister Jean-François Lisée in 2012 after four years working in Quebec media.Fréchette will now take the next three weeks to select and prepare her cabinet before returning to the National Assembly on May 5 to serve as the 33rd premier of Quebec.The provincial election is scheduled for Oct. 5.François Legault urges unityMaking his final speech as premier of Quebec, an emotional Legault spoke to CAQ supporters in the hour before before the leadership results were announced.He said he was proud of the two “solid candidates” and looked forward to what the winner would accomplish in Quebec City.Legault also warned about the possible divisions within a party following a leadership race, urging unity from all sides.“A leadership race creates tensions, it’s normal,” Legault said. “But in an hour, we’ll have a new leader and a new premier of Quebec. The winning team will need to be generous, and extend their hand. And the other team will need to accept that hand. That’s the last request I’m asking as leader of this party. Unite!”That final plea ended Legault’s farewell to public office and the party he was instrumental in creating. He looked back on the party’s beginning, and how he went from having to “convince people one by one” to forming consecutive majority governments. He offered a brief recap of the CAQ’s accomplishments during his time in office, and asked his supporters not to let the party’s opponents “boil our mandates down to a couple of bad decisions.”“Remember that we changed Quebec. Let’s be proud of what we accomplished,” he said.Legault was treated to a lengthy homage, with several Quebec personalities paying tribute to him via video message. Supporters in Drummondville then gave him a standing ovation as he walked off the stage for one final time.–With files from The Canadian Press