An opposition coalition could yet take down Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's newly reelected minority Conservative government in February, but leading members are hesitating after a public backlash.

At first pundits and even members of his own party had questioned Harper's leadership as a bruising constitutional crisis unfolded this week, but polls show he has emerged stronger in popular support, and is preferred by many voters to the coalition that wants to replace him.

It was just this past Monday, in a heady ceremony, that the main opposition Liberal Party signed an agreement with the left-leaning New Democrats and the separatist Bloc Quebecois to try to topple Harper and install a Liberal-NDP government.

The potential was for them to take power as early as next week after a confidence vote, but that has now been put off at least till late January and probably early February. Meanwhile public opinion has swung sharply against the coalition.

"If you're sitting in the Liberal caucus, looking at these numbers, you've got to be having second thoughts," Ipsos Reid pollster Darrell Bricker said.

He released a poll yesterday showing 62 percent of Canadians angry at the idea of the coalition taking power. Ipsos and two other polling companies show the Conservatives with such support — between 44 percent and 46 percent — that they could turn their minority in Parliament into a strong majority if an election were held now. They won 37.6 percent of the votes in the October 14 election.

The catalyst for forming the coalition had been an attempt by Harper, now abandoned, to end direct public subsidies of political parties.

The idea of the opposition parties trying to replace the government without an election is legal but Harper said it would be undemocratic for them to do so so soon after an election campaign in which the opposition parties had ruled out forming a coalition.

He also played up the fact that the federalist Liberals and NDP had signed a formal arrangement with a party, the Bloc Quebecois, dedicated to taking Quebec out of Canada, though Harper himself has cooperated with the Bloc before.

Formally, the coalition continues to exist, with the Bloc and the New Democrats and many in the Liberal Party firmly behind it.

"I'm still behind this idea. I think it's important for the Liberal Party to stay faithful to the agreement we signed," Bob Rae, one of three candidates running to lead the Liberal Party, told CBC television yesterday.

"I will continue to speak about the necessity of changing the government and about how Mr. Harper has frankly in my opinion lost the confidence of Canadians."

But the Liberal Party is by no means unanimous, now that next week's confidence vote has been put off, about whether it would in fact go ahead.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion, who would briefly become prime minister if the coalition took power, said the goal was to bring Harper down unless they saw "monumental change" such as "a real recovery plan" for the economy.

The front-runner in the Liberal leadership race, Michael Ignatieff, backed completely away from automatic confrontation.

One of the problems he appeared to recognise is that it is not a slam dunk that the coalition would take power if it defeated the government. It might instead be thrown into a general election, with unfavorable poll numbers. – Reuters