A few days before the second round, calls or declarations to vote are starting to pour in. Whether voters will follow them and make them their own remains a question mark, especially if they come from excluded lists. How can one not wonder if these recommendations were so appreciated, why didn’t they receive the necessary votes to be present directly?
Xavier Garcia and Patrick Allemand, representatives of the Socialist Party and its civic offshoot Nice au Coeur, tell us the story of the missed opportunity for a catch-up among the left lists to present a united front in next Sunday’s election.
They could also incorporate it to tell us why this united list wasn’t presented in the first round on March 15, which would have undeniably been better. Did they forget part of the story?
The “shopkeeper interests” of certain candidates from the ecological list they speak of are simply the fervent desire of these candidates to keep their places as likely election winners rather than giving them up in the name of the noble interest of the left! Knowing the topics, why be surprised if they did not want to give up their dream…
Quite the opposite, indeed!
To complete it all, they could have added their analysis on the reasons for this glaring electoral failure. Is it just bad luck? A little self-criticism, perhaps?
The local social-democratic left thus concludes its path of disappearance from elective institutions, and it’s a sad end.
The two leaders assure that they “will make it live differently.” Given the recent past and the present… we await the formula.
On March 15, in unbelievable circumstances due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the first round of the municipal election took place. In Nice, the verdict from the ballot boxes fell, and the scenario we had publicly feared as early as November 2019 — the risk of the entire left being eliminated — happened.
A citizen association managed to bring to the discussion table the three heads of the list (Governatori, Damiano, Allemand) of Nice Écologique, Viva, and Nice au Cœur, and their delegations. After lengthy exchanges, we reached a minimal agreement ensuring the representation of the three lists on the municipal council, but the next day, a dozen EELV militants rejected everything outright, thereby blocking the representation of 15.42% of the voters.
We regret this missed opportunity that could have engaged us in a virtuous cycle after a period of division, and we regret even more the immature, sectarian, and humiliating attitude of the leaders of Nice Écologique behind Jean-Marc Governatori who, it should be noted, had an open attitude but was overwhelmed by the shopkeeper interests of the leaders of Europe Écologie Les Verts. This episode will have serious consequences.
Therefore, despite our common values, we believe that the Nice Écologique list is not worthy of leading the 5th city of France, nor even of representing a credible and responsible opposition to Christian Estrosi — as evidenced by its omission of a social component in its program or its proposal to ask Christian Estrosi to delegate the environmental component of his project. Thus, with much sadness, we will not vote for the Nice Écologique list, and we call on all our first-round voters, as well as those who could not come on that day, to vote blank in the June 28 election.
There will therefore be no more leftist opposition on the Municipal Council, but you can be assured that we will ensure it lives on differently over the next six years.
Xavier Garcia, Secretary of PS06; Patrick Allemand, President of Nice au Coeur
