The three Nice constituencies will have to go through a second round next Sunday to elect their respective deputies. Unless there is a major surprise, the local right-wing is expected to sweep all three elections. With three Right/Left duels (two UMP/PS and one NC/PS), the Nice constituencies will thus offer a remake of the second round of the last presidential election.
In the first constituency, Eric Ciotti should not have much difficulty defeating his socialist opponent, Patrick Allemand, after seeing his far-right opponent, Jacques Peyrat, eliminated in the first round. It is clear that a three-way race might have changed the situation, but in a head-to-head duel, it is hard to see how the outgoing Deputy and President of the General Council could be threatened by the 1st Vice President of the Regional Council. The final result, which is expected to be around 60% for Eric Ciotti, remains to be seen.
In the 3rd constituency, it is a quite similar scenario with a duel between centrist Rudy Salles and socialist Christine Dorejo, who has already achieved her feat, for a first election, by forcing the outgoing Deputy into a second round he did not experience in the previous legislative election. However, it is hard to imagine another surprise in this second round, and logically Rudy Salles is expected to secure another mandate since the frontist candidate, Gaรซl Nofri, also failed to qualify for the second round.
Regarding the 5th constituency, Christian Estrosi seems ideally positioned to succeed himself against socialist Paul Cuturello. Having come out well ahead in the first round, the Deputy Mayor of Nice should logically win, and it will remain only to watch his score to gauge his popularity within his constituency and a part of his city.
In short, no major surprise is expected in a second round that should legitimize the three outgoing deputies who will be able to start working on the next election from Monday, with the 2014 municipal elections certainly promising to be much more surprising… But we will come back to that soon!
