MONTREAL (AP) – Quebec’s Liberal Party won a mandate in Monday’s provincial election while the separatists failed to gain ground, a result that staves off another referendum on separation from Canada.

But Premier Jean Charest’s Liberals fell short of a majority in the provincial parliament in the three-way race that left Quebecers facing an uncertain political landscape.

Charest’s party won about one-third of Quebec’s 125 seats, edging out the conservative Action Democratique and the third-place Parti Quebecois separatists.

With counting completed at more than 98 percent of polling stations, the Liberals had won 33 percent to 31 percent for Action Democratique, 28 percent for separatists and smaller parties taking the remainder.

The rise of Mario Dumont’s Action Democratique was the story of the night as the party was poised to become the official opposition ahead of the Parti Quebecois.

The result also left the Parti Quebecois and the provincial sovereignty movement with major questions. Under Andre Boisclair, the party fell to the lowest level of popular support in decades and the smallest number of seats since 1989.

The election, in which the party gained fewer than 40 seats, effectively stopped the clock on any timing for another sovereignty referendum.

While separation was not a major issue in the campaign, it is an issue never far from the surface in Quebec, with support for independence usually hovering around 45 percent.

Quebecers also gave a thumbs-down to four years of Liberal rule. Charest was the first premier to fail to win a second majority mandate in 40 years.

He was even in trouble in his own constituency.

A minority Liberal government would need the support of other parties to pass legislation because it would lack a majority in the assembly. Quebec has not had such a government since 1878.

“As far as we can remember we had a party system that was bipolar with two dominant parties that were trading majorities after two terms,” said University of Montreal political scientist Pierre Martin.

“This time not only do we see a sitting party on the verge of losing an election after just one term, but we also have a three-party situation. It’s a brand new situation.”

More than 5.6 million voters in the French-speaking province were registered for the election for Quebec’s National Assembly, the legislature that sits in Quebec City.

Dumont’s rise as a contender, after his party finished a distant third in the 2003 elections, upset the usual two-party political landscape that made Quebec sovereignty a predominant issue since the 1970s.

The Parti Quebecois held referendums on separation in 1980 and 1995, losing the second by a razor-thin margin.

AP-ES-03-26-07 2342EDT