By Sudouest.fr with AFP
If Christiane Taubira is given as the favorite of the popular Primary, a surprise cannot be ruled out, including the victory of a candidate refusing to recognize the result, at the risk of further adding to the confusion.
The approximately 467,000 registered voters have been voting online since Thursday. The result should be known this Sunday from 7 p.m. When the votes closed, 392,738 voters were registered, a turnout of 84.1%, according to the organizers.
Three candidates despite themselves
Basically, the Popular Primary had a simple objective: to designate a champion capable of bringing together the entire left to carry the iron to the presidential and push the door of the second round. For this, this citizens’ initiative ended up selecting seven candidates, from different leftist sensibilities: environmentalist, socialist and rebellious. Clear.
Except that three of the seven candidates and not the least – Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, Jean-Luc Mélenchon – have asked, in vain, not to be involved in this affair and refuse in any case to comply with the result of the vote. “For me, the page of the popular primary has been turned for a while,” Jadot repeated on Saturday.
real popular success
The figure of 467,000 registered in the popular Primary was however hailed as a real popular success, in view of the 22,000 activists of the socialist nomination, the 122,000 participants in the environmental primary, the nearly 140,000 of the congress of Republicans , and the 272,000 militant sponsorships of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The sign also, according to its promoters, that the time is no longer for big parties, but for citizens ready to reclaim politics and resurrect a left-wing family as divided as it is weakened, which weighs barely a quarter of the intentions of vote.
The voting system could also hold its share of surprises. Voters must rank the candidates with the following ratings: “Very good”, “Good”, “Fairly good”, “Fair”, “Insufficient”. And the candidate with the best median wins the election.
One more application?
But what will happen if on Sunday one of the three “despite us” is declared the winner? A scenario that cannot be ruled out because the parties have not prohibited their activists from participating.
The most “comfortable” scenario remains a victory for Christiane Taubira against the three other lesser-known candidates, MEP Pierre Larrouturou and two people from civil society, Charlotte Marchandise and Anna Agueb-Porterie. Unlike its three main competitors, the former Keeper of the Seals has promised to respect both the result and the terms for the future.
“I will join the person who will have been designated. It is obviously up to her to create the conditions for the union, ”she repeated on Friday. But if the winner does not recognize the process? So “we are not in the same situation, but we will see quietly on Sunday”, she added, refusing to say clearly whether she would withdraw or not in the event of defeat.
For Anne Hidalgo, who believes that the scenario of a victory for Taubira is “a little written in advance”, “there is only one who recognizes the process, it is her, and therefore she will rally to herself”.