This Sunday, the socialist primaries took place in Nice, and unsurprisingly, François Hollande came out ahead of Martine Aubry. After a first round celebrated by more than 20,000 voters, what will happen in the second round scheduled for this Sunday in all the voting offices in Nice and the Côte d’Azur region? Declarations from Patrick Allemand and Xavier Garcia.
Declaration of Patrick Allemand, Secretary of the Socialist Party 06
“I would like to thank, on behalf of the Socialist Party Federation of the Alpes-Maritimes, the 29,772 voters of the department who came out to vote in the Primaries.
This level of participation exceeds all our expectations and is a tremendous reward for all the activists who have been mobilizing for a year to ensure that citizens have the maximum number of polling stations and can express their choice under the best conditions.
I also want to thank all the socialist and radical members and supporters who managed our 133 polling stations with a sense of responsibility and good humor. We have just given, here as elsewhere, a lesson in democracy.
Each of us will campaign for our favored candidate this week, but it will be as from the beginning of these Primaries, with respect for each other’s convictions and persons.
We invite all the voters from the 1st round, and many others, to the second round to amplify the momentum that will allow us to win in May 2012.”
Xavier Garcia (Spokesperson of the Socialist Party 06 and co-manager of the organization)
“We estimated last night after the first results that the participation exceeded 20,000 voters.
In fact, there were nearly 30,000 voters (29,972)! It’s three times what we expected. The pleasant surprise comes from the national wave being greater than anticipated, but also from the fact that participation (about 4%) was not lower than the average in the Alpes-Maritimes, the department that voted the most for Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.
Participation is satisfactory everywhere. The popular districts voted a little less, but this is no surprise given the lesser access to information, especially via the internet, in these neighborhoods.
We noticed, however, an excellent level of information in more residential areas, which resulted in some surprises, notably a participation level higher than average. The participation of right-wing voters who came to disrupt the election was an extremely marginal phenomenon, if it existed at all.
The results consistent with national trends prove it.
Participation in the upper and middle parts of the region varied. Where there was only one office per canton, the distance to travel was often prohibitive for some residents, particularly for certain villages in the Vésubie and the Tinée.
Nevertheless, there were very encouraging results, notably in the backcountry of Grasse and Menton regions.”
