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Battle rages to control Socialist party |
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Monday, 24 November 2008 |
The French Socialist party is locked in a fierce procedural struggle to establish clearly who won last Friday’s election for the post of Secretary-General.
A preliminary result was declared in the early hours of Saturday morning showing Martine Aubry 42 votes ahead out of a total of a 137,200 cast.
Ségolène Royal, through her able lieutenant Manuel Valls, deputy maire of Evry, protested the result in the strongest terms and said they would do whatever was necessary to challenge it. Their reasoning was clear. Why, they asked, when the results all over France showed a victory for Royal, should this trend be overturned at the last minute by untypical results from two federations sympathetic to Aubry that were announced late – suspiciously late some would say?
The Aubry camp and much of the press were not slow to talk of bad losers. However when one error of 12 votes was discovered in the Moselle that reduced the “winning” majority to 18, their confidence wavered.
Martine Aubry then announced herself the winner and the new Secretary General of the party. Her aim was clearly to give the impression of a definitive election, to ‘establish’ possession and put a stop to the idea of a third vote.
However, the news that the party had failed to count votes from the Dom-Toms that completely wiped out the Aubry majority made this symbolic gesture seem premature. It may also be self-defeating because if Royal and her supporters are right that the votes were wrongly counted and Aubry is right that the there should be no new election, then Royal is the winner.
Based on evidence produced by the local television channel in the Nord, France 3, Manuel Valls has announced that he is to make a complaint to the authorities for forgery of election documents. The Nord Federation has said it will sue him for slander.
The verification committee meets on Monday night. The party’s National committee will decide what should happen next – a result based on agreed figures or a new election.
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