Quebec's political parties continued to trot out star candidates ahead of an expected announcement on Wednesday that Quebecers will go to the polls in late March.

Claude Duceppe, the brother of Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, announced Sunday that he will run for the sovereigntist party in the riding of Joliette, a Parti Québécois stronghold north of Montreal.

Claude Duceppe has worked as a PQ insider for several years and said there was no familial pressure to run. He hopes to succeed PQ incumbent Jonathan Valois, who is not running for personal reasons.

That followed an announcement two weeks ago that the PQ had persuaded well-known Quebec City Radio-Canada reporter Bernard Drainville to join its team.

Political observers say there are several benefits to presenting a roster of high-profile candidates. It shows the party is perceived as capable of attracting big names, and it adds to the perception that a party has solid momentum going into an election.

Last week, Premier Jean Charest announced two star candidates, drawing a double bogey with Nicole Ménard, a female candidate who is a former Bank of Montreal vice-president.

Charest has boasted he has a record number of women running in this provincial election. So far, 44 women have been nominated out of a total of 125 ridings. Charest says he is actively seeking to increase the number of women in the National Assembly.

"We're going to make sure that Quebecers know that our party believes that there should be more women in politics. I'm proud of that. I've made it an objective," he said.

There can be drawbacks to running star candidates. Many are unaccustomed to the political arena, where every pronouncement is sliced, diced and recast to the public with new meaning by opposition parties.

That's what happened to another Liberal star candidate, Pierre Arcand, a former president of Chorus Quebec, when he likened the leader of Action démocratique du Québec to France's extreme right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The ADQ has yet to announce any high-flying candidates, like they did in previous elections.

"We are not running after names, we are running after real people who have convictions," ADQ Leader Mario Dumont said.