Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe has decided against seeking the leadership of the provincial Parti Quebecois.

Instead, he will throw his support to Pauline Marois, a veteran PQ politician who lost the party's leadership to Andre Boisclair in the fall of 2005.

"From the moment I decided to enter the Parti Quebecois leadership race, I was and I still am, eminently convinced that I could make an important contribution as Parti Quebecois leader,'' Duceppe said in a statement released Saturday.

"It's time for a woman, and one of quality, to come in to lead the Parti Quebecois, then Quebec,'' he said.

"I hope to continue to work towards the advance of our cause -- Quebec sovereignty -- as Bloc Quebecois leader. I also intend to ask Bloc Quebecois MPs on Monday to reiterate their confidence.''

Both politicians said Friday they would likely seek the leadership of the beleaguered Quebec sovereigntist party after Boisclair quit earlier this week. Boisclair had led the party to one of its worst showings in decades in Quebec's March 26 provincial election, leaving it in third place with 36 of 125 seats and with 28 per cent of the vote.

"He jumped the gun yesterday," Antonia Maioni, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, told Newsnet. "It was anticipated he would first talk with Madame Marois and decide which of them would run, because it's very difficult to have this type of race with two very strong frontrunners."

CTV's Mike Duffy told Newsnet that a CROP poll published Saturday by Montreal's La Presse newspaper showed that Marois was the overwhelming early favourite in the PQ race - something that may have weighed on Duceppe's mind.

The poll showed Marois to be the first choice of 45 per cent of Quebecers, compared to 21 per cent for Duceppe. Other candidates registered single-digit support.

"I think Gilles Duceppe must have woken up to the same headlines that we woke up to here in Quebec," Maioni said. "I guess the reckoning was that if it was going to be a two-way race between himself and Marois, he might well lose that race."

Duceppe said in his statement that a rapid swell of support for Marois helped him decide to stay out.

Many in the PQ never stopped thinking that Marois would have been a better leader than Boisclair, and that the party's subsequent performance showed that to be true, Maioni said, adding the CROP poll suggested she could pull in much more than 28 per cent of the vote in an election.

Besides the poll, many PQ members of the legislature came out in support of Marois on Friday and not Duceppe, she said.

Marois will be a formidable candidate for anyone to face. She has held virtually every heavyweight portfolio in government, Maioni said, adding Marois has the ability to talk to both the right and left of the PQ.

Duceppe, 59, became the Bloc's first elected MP when he won a byelection in the Montreal riding of Laurier-Ste. Marie in the summer of 1990. He became the party's third leader in 1997 and has stayed in the job ever since. He is currently the longest-serving leader of a federal party.

When the PQ leadership came open in 2005 with the surprise resignation of then-leader Bernard Landry, Duceppe's name was bandied about as a possible replacement. Duceppe bowed out at that time, saying he was needed in Ottawa.

The sponsorship scandal was boiling at that time, and Canadians went to the polls federally in late November 2005 after the Liberal minority government was defeated on a motion of non-confidence.

While he has been one of the most popular politicians in Quebec, Duceppe will likely have a difficult meeting with his BQ caucus on Monday, Joel-Denis Bellavance, Ottawa bureau chief for La Presse, told Newsnet. He predicted Duceppe would have to "come crawling back."