French Left Takes Control of the Senate
Baku, September 26 (AZERTAC). The French left laid claim to control of the Senate on Sunday, the first time the indirectly elected upper house will not be controlled by the right since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
The Socialist candidate François Hollande said the election results were a preview of the 2012 presidential vote.
The results, which were trickling in from all over France, would mark a serious defeat for President Nicolas Sarkozy, who hopes to win re-election in presidential elections that are only seven months away.
A potential challenger, the Socialist candidate François Hollande, called the results “a decomposition of the Sarkozy system” and saw it as a preview of the 2012 presidential vote. His Socialist rival, Martine Aubry, who leads the party, said, “It`s time to turn the page and put in place not a deleterious republic, as is the case today, but the real irreproachable republic that Nicolas Sarkozy promised us and that he has betrayed.”
Mr. Sarkozy`s friends and allies have been caught up in a series of scandals or allegations of scandals, some dating back to other presidencies. Most recently, three of his closest friends have been implicated in an investigation into campaign kickbacks from an arms sale 17 years ago to Pakistan, while his putative campaign manager and former interior minister is being investigated for leaking privileged judicial information to one of the men involved.
Still, the campaign will be a difficult one for the left, which is trying to show that its presidential candidates are credible and able to handle the country in a crisis. And Mr. Sarkozy is renowned as a good campaigner, even with his current low poll figures.
The Senate vote is not the best indicator of voter sentiment — French citizens as a whole do not directly vote for the Senate, which is elected by some 72,000 mayors, local and regional councilors and those they appoint, who vote on the basis of regional party lists. The results on Sunday reflect the increasing strength over the years of the left in local councils and elections and divisions within the right.
Fewer than half the Senate`s 348 seats were up for grabs in Sunday`s vote, and the left — the Socialists in combination with the Greens and the Communists — needed 23 seats to win a majority.
Jean-Pierre Bel, head of the Senate`s Socialist group, says the left won 24 to 26 new seats. Mr. Bel did not say whether his figures were projections. But the Senate president, Gérard Larcher, from the ruling center-right party, said that the left “made a real push.” Assuming the left wins, Mr. Larcher would be voted out of his post, which is also the first in line of succession should the president die or be incapacitated. Jean-François Copé, the head of Mr. Sarkozy`s party, called the Senate results “disappointing, but not a surprise,” given the succession of local victories of the left since 2004. He said that the real election will come next year, with the presidency.
François Fillon, the prime minister, issued a statement saying that the right would unite and “the moment of truth will come next spring — this evening the battle begins.”
The Senate`s powers are less than those of the National Assembly, since the government, if the Parliament cannot agree on a bill, can push it through only the lower house, even though that happens rarely.
But any defeat is not a happy event for Mr. Sarkozy, whose party is already nervous about his standings in the polls and the continuing economic and financial crisis. His party was also hurt in these Senate elections by internal divisions and numerous “dissident lists” of candidates.
Other news in this section
