This Sunday, the 15,481 UMP members from the Alpes-Maritimes will finally be able to vote to choose the new President of the Party as well as cast their votes in favor of one of the six motions submitted by the different factions, and for a charter of values that should guide its future political direction.
It is known that the two candidates running are Jean-François Copé and François Fillon, and they have been vying for the votes of the militants over the past weeks in a battle of ideas, but above all in organizing electoral consensus, in a spirit that their patron saint (Saint Francis) would have difficulty recognizing as the product of his inspiration and teaching: Mutual love and respect…
Obviously, the victory of one or the other will also have local consequences: If the supporter of the “uninhibited right” wins, Michèle Tabarot will become the number 2 person of the party while in the other scenario which seems to be taking shape, François Fillon will have Eric Ciotti by his side who will occupy the position of number 3.
It is easy to imagine that all this will have repercussions, still unpredictable to this day, on the balance of local power given the impact of this party in the Alpes-Maritimes. All with the municipal elections of 2014 and the cantonal and regional elections of 2015 in sight… and the decisions on nominations that are to follow!
Jean-François Copé and François Fillon are both vying for the presidency of the movement, already with an eye on the next presidential deadline. According to polls, François Fillon initially holds an edge among parliamentarians and sympathizers. On the other hand, Jean-François Copé, who has managed the party for the past two years, presents himself as the candidate of the militants.
Who will be right this Sunday evening after the vote?
Whatever the result, the new president will have the heavy task of reviving a party that has lost a presidential and a legislative election, and, should we remind, has not won a local election since 2004.
Therefore, the UMP must succeed in transforming from a state-party to an opposition party, an exercise that does not look easy given that Jean-Louis Borloo is working to bring together the center-right within the Union of Democrats and Independents, with the stated ambition of challenging the UMP’s supremacy and that, on the other side, the FN in its Marine Le Pen version continues, without reducing, on the contrary, the pressure on the themes and proposals of the most populist right, having the effect of accelerating the phenomena of permeability of ideas and electorates (half of the affiliates wishing for agreements between the UMP and the National Front for future elections.)
In the future, the UMP will therefore have to invent an effective and convincing right-wing policy, which it has not been able to do over the past decade when it was in power, but also tackle the long list of unresolved structural handicaps from which France and the French suffer, preventing an adaptation to globalization.
The internal electoral campaign within the party was an opportunity to make more concrete proposals. Unfortunately, it was a lost opportunity because criticizing President Hollande all over the place and playing on the security theme like anti-white racism does not propose a political project that could win in 2017!
Verdict of the ballot boxes this evening, at cocktail hour…
