SAGUENAY, QUE. -- As a lame-duck leader, Jean Chrétien faces a major challenge to govern effectively for the next 18 months, after having given up the biggest club a prime minister has to discipline his caucus: the prerogative to go over the heads of MPs by calling an election.

This concern for the potential constraints of lame-duckism prevented him from revealing sooner his plans to retire and not to seek a fourth term, a decision he says he made two years ago.

The traditional carrots and sticks -- appointments to cabinet or a parliamentary secretaryship, or rewards such as the chairmanship of a parliamentary committee or a pet project in an MP's riding -- now have a reduced currency.

His caucus will be more concerned about the appointments and deals his successor might make. That is why the Prime Minister said it had been his view that it would be in the best political interests of the Liberal Party for him not to signal his intentions publicly until later in his term. Obviously, many Liberals disagreed with him, and eventually their message got through; the pressure to clarify his intentions for the sake of quelling party infighting overcame all other considerations.

When a week can be considered a lifetime in politics, 18 months is a very long time, enough for two pregnancies. But another view about lame-duckism now is being put forward by the Prime Minister and his advisers. The whole top layer of his staff has been preoccupied with the leadership challenge and concerned about the whole messy business of putting together some sort of leadership organization. Now they say that without the distractions of defending his leadership, they will be freed up to concentrate on policy and governance.

There will be a flurry of activity: a Speech from the Throne followed by a budget, and then another whole year of policy-pitching, leading to another budget.

The one big club the Prime Minister retains is the power to fire a minister who isn't performing or who is allowing his or her leadership activity to interfere with ministerial duties. And since we are in for an 18-month leadership campaign, no potential candidate will want to lose a ministerial podium.

The other point that was made to Mr. Chrétien when the announcement strategy was being discussed is that former U.S. president Bill Clinton was not prevented from taking major initiatives in his second term, even though his retirement date was known four years in advance. Indeed, both he and his predecessor, George Bush, ordered missile attacks on real or imagined enemies in the final days of their mandates.

Mr. Chrétien will be aiming his missiles internally. But it will be in the self-interest of all Liberal MPs to support the government initiatives, especially on important confidence matters such as budgets. Even the detractors allied with former finance minister Paul Martin do not want to force an election by allowing the government to fall. Mr. Chrétien would still be their leader in the election that followed, and they could lose their seats.

As for the civility, smoothness and effectiveness of the next 18 months, much will depend on what posture Mr. Martin adopts and what messages he sends to his pit bulls in caucus. Referring to former prime ministers Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, a Martin organizer noted that "greater leaders than he had problems managing a shorter campaign." Indeed, Mr. Pearson lost a budget vote because his would-be successors were off campaigning.

As for Mr. Martin, he has been vocal in recent days about how much he wants to talk policy, and about how much work the Liberals have still to do.

Will he participate in all of that as a backbencher? Or when he talks about the democratic deficit, will he encourage the MPs who back him to try to disrupt caucus or parliamentary committees in an attempt to diminish the remaining Chrétien initiatives?

Such an approach would amount to a scorched-earth policy, which could very well backfire within the Liberal Party. More dangerous would be its impact on the government Mr. Martin and his supporters hope to inherit.
hwinsor@globeandmail.ca