In response to the electoral situation of the PS candidate (and their programmatic orientations), many left-wing voters have opted for a strategic vote for Macron, a position since embodied by Manuel Valls. These voters were quickly stigmatized on social media by the gatekeepers who saw this as a betrayal of the primary.
However, over the past few days, many of the ruthless critics of strategic voting have begun to practice it themselves. Hamon thus lost half of his voters to Mélenchon simply because polls (which suddenly regained some credibility) suggested that the latter had a better chance of reaching the second round.
Such an attitude is clearly a betrayal of the primary in which many voted for Hamon! Not to mention the ideological differences, particularly on Europe. To defend himself, Hamon in turn calls for strategic voting using a curious argument: the “centrality” of his candidacy!
All this to reiterate that strategic voting is not a denial of democracy but the normal behavior of rational voters confronted with the rules of the two-round majority voting system in the presidential election.
by Patrick Mottard
