The first round of the legislative elections takes place on Sunday June 30, but already, it is the question of the second round which is agitating the majority. What voting instructions should we give to voters? Under what conditions should the candidates in the presidential camp consider withdrawing for one or other of their opponents? A real headache.
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This is the question that everyone in the camp is trying to avoid answering at the moment.Emmanuel Macron. Before the first round, the line is not to decide. To already talk about voting instructions for the second round is to put oneself in a position of defeat far too early. A Parisian candidate brushes aside this question: “ I’m really in the countryside. We are here to win ”, and he adds: “ The candidates all see the mouse hole “. A way of saying that they want to believe that they have a chance despite a particularly difficult context and a rejection of Emmanuel Macron whom they are dragging like a ball and chain through the campaign.
Postponing until later is also a way of avoiding an issue that causes internal divisions. The “neither-nor”, neither far right nor far left, in line with the first round campaign theorized around three blocs which consists of sending back to back the RN-Ciotti alliance and the New Popular Front radicalized by LFI, is not unanimous. Voices are already being heard to reject this non-choice. A former minister candidate to regain his mandate as deputy wants to remain consistent with his convictions: ” Between the RN and LFI, I choose LFI… because the concrete danger is the RN which risks having a majority in the Assembly “. For him, between two evils, we must choose the less dangerous one and that must go as far as withdrawing in favor of a left-wing candidate in the event of a triangular vote in the second round.
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“ Plague and cholera »
But for others, it’s not so obvious. As for this MP who believes that it is a question of choosing between “ plague and cholera “. He does not envisage a general voting instruction and even less systematic withdrawals, “ it will be necessary to look on a case by case basis » when the results of the first round are in. The constituencies where the question will be really thorny will be those where there will be RN-LFI duels. Calling to vote for a socialist or an ecologist against the RN should not pose a problem, on the other hand supporting a candidate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, that’s another matter. A Republican roadblock, but à la carte in a way.
So the majority leaders will have a difficult decision to make? Choose “neither-nor” as in 2022, which in the opinion of an outgoing MP already had at the time “ made a mess after the first round ”, seems difficult. The case by case approach is therefore emerging, but it will be harder to justify, because the political situation has evolved, the RN is now truly at the gates of power. The ecologist Marine Tondelier understood that it was necessary to put pressure on the majority by asking to meet the leaders of Renaissance and its allies so that they could clarify their position on the Republican front. They are unlikely to do so before Sunday evening.
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