French UMP leadership election, 2012
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 29, 2024, 02:01:51 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Other Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  International Elections (Moderators: afleitch, Hash)
  French UMP leadership election, 2012
« previous next »
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: French UMP leadership election, 2012  (Read 481 times)
Zanas
Zanas46
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 2,947
France


WWW Show only this user's posts in this thread
« on: October 04, 2012, 04:50:09 AM »

The right-wing monolithic party created by Jacques Chirac in 2002 is currently running its first time competitive leadership election. The election is for the office of President of the party, which was vacant under the 5-year term of Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France.

Vote will happen on November 18th, and is reserved to UMP enlisted members. Still, it accounts for a potential of around 230,000 voters, and will be a test of how the right can handle a mediatic voting process as well as the center-left PS succeeded a year ago.

For the first time, voting will also choose between platforms, which may or may not result in the installation of official wings of the party. As of now, there are clubs or groups, but not official wings.

According to plans, the winner here will not automatically be the nominee for the 2017 French Presidential election, when the UMP could or could not use an open primary process, but he certainly will have an edge in that.

After a number of "small or medium" candidates failed to gather the necessary signatures of 3% of the members (ca. 8,000), we're left with only two candidates :

-François Fillon, Prime Minister of Sarkozy from 2007 to 2012, several times minister before that, largely representing the quiet, moderate kind of right. He is the favourite in each and every poll. His assets are : he is seen as the contrary of Sarkozy, who just lost. He is seen as a better potential gatherer of ideologies, more mainstream centre-right which can steal appeal to parts of the hardcore right or even far-right. Plus he just served for five years as Prime Minister with relatively good support-levels as opposed to Sarkozy's, so he's got the "statesman stature". Main drawback : can be seen as a bit soft or shallow.

-Jean-François Copé, incumbent Secretary General of the party (ie. de facto leader), has been minister and government spokesman but a while ago. He is seen as more of the energetic, dynamic and somewhat erratic kind of right, more appealing to hardcore and far right supporters. Main assets : he has had the control over the party logistics for a while now, so he basically organizes the election and knows every influent middle executives of the party. Plus he is seen as energetic, the only item in which he defeats Fillon in polls, and he's the underdog so he has nothing to lose. Drawbacks : he is seen as too much a clone of Sarkozy, which is kind of embarrassing right now (could not be the same in 2016 though...), and he continually fails to extend his support towards the centre-right and the centre.

For now, we didn't have many polls rolling in, but they've all been between 65-35 and 75-25 in favor of Fillon. We will have at least one televised debate but I don't think the date's been announced so far. Generally, the media treats Fillon as the future winner, and their favourite.

The outcome will depend on which departemental federations will have which turnout, how much the debate and the last month of media campaigning will affect voters. We could expect a narrower outcome, but few can see Copé winning in the end for now.

See this blog for more information, made by our fellow Atlas member big bad fab.
Logged
Pages: [1]  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.02 seconds with 11 queries.