domingo, 30 de novembro de 2014

Sarkozy calls for UMP unity after narrow victory in leadership contest. / Guardian.


Sarkozy calls for UMP unity after narrow victory in leadership contest
French opposition party supporters in record turnout but under 65% give ex-president mandate for 2017 election
Kim Willsher in Paris

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy promised a new era for France’s official opposition, after winning his centre-right party’s leadership battle at the weekend.

Speaking on television, he called for unity among the various factions that have weakened the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) since he lost the presidential election to the Socialist François Hollande in 2012.

Sarkozy said: “My ambition is to create a modern party where the members can have their say. My red line is unity of all because of the situation France is in now. It is more than ‘morose’ it is a catastrophic economic situation. We cannot be divided. We have a duty not to be.”

He added: “I will gather a team that represents all of our movement. I want to offer the French something different from the humiliation today of François Hollande, and the humiliation tomorrow of Madame [Marine] Le Pen.

“We have to give the French a future, new ideas...”

He said the economy was dire, immigration “out of control” and the education system “broken down”.

Sarkozy, 59, had been tipped to win the leadership vote and indeed gained a clear majority, which avoided the humiliation of a second round of polling. But it was not the landslide victory he had hoped would crush dissent and leave rivals for the 2017 presidential race standing. His nearest rival, the former agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire, polled 29.18%, a score that will reduce Sarkozy’s room for manoeuvre in the party, which he intends to use as a launch pad for a second term in the Elysée.

Alain Juppé, the former prime minister who is expected to stand against Sarkozy in the UMP presidential primaries planned for 2016, was photographed smiling broadly after learning that Sarkozy had obtained just 64.5% of votes from party members, despite a record turnout. This was well below the 85% Sarkozy obtained in the 2004 leadership vote.

Juppé denied any schadenfreude, saying: “I am happy the elections went well. It was a clean win [for Sarkozy]. I’m obviously pleased the UMP can now close the scars of the previous [leadership] election.”

Later he added: “It’s now up to him to give the UMP the elan it needs and for that he will have to unify. He needs to appease the very clear tensions. It’s not through internal conflict that things will move forward so he has to take the initiative.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/29/nicolas-sarkozy-ump-party-leadership-elected Another former UMP minister, Benoist Apparu, told France Info radio that party members had not given Sarkozy a ringing endorsement to do what he wants.

“Having said that, 65% is a good result. He was elected in a clean and flawless way ... but he does not have a blank cheque,” he said.

Sarkozy was first elected UMP leader in November 2004 and went on to win the 2007 presidential election.

Political analysts pointed out it was the first time Nicolas Sarkozy had faced opposition within his own party.

On his Facebook account, Sarkozy wrote: “Dear friends, I’d liked to thank all the UMP party members who have done me the honour of electing me to lead our political family. Their turnout, unprecedented in the history of our movement, is the best response to two years of internal quarrels and divisions. This campaign has been dignified. I salute, in the name of all party members, Bruno Le Maire and Hervé Mariton who took part in this debate with conviction and respect.”

He added: “Now the time has come for action.”

Party chiefs hope the election will mark a new start for the UMP. A leadership vote in September 2012, after Sarkozy lost and disappeared – temporarily – from public life, imploded into allegations of vote rigging and fraud, and ended with the installing of a temporary “collegiate” team to run the party.

The UMP is mired in a corruption inquiry over allegations that false bills were used to hide the true cost of Sarkozy’s 2012 campaign. Sarkozy is also officially under investigation as part of a corruption and misuse of power inquiry. He has always denied any wrongdoing.

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a former UMP minister in Sarkozy’s government, described this weekend’s election as “a renaissance” for the party.

The UMP’s 268,300 paid-up members were eligible to take part in the electronic vote that ran for 24 hours from Friday evening and party officials hailed a record 58.1% participation.

A police inquiry is under way after attempts to disrupt the party’s computer system shortly after the poll opened. UMP election officials said its computer system had been subject to “an external attack” aimed at making it crash that had temporarily disrupted the vote.

Sarkozy has promised to transform the UMP from “top to bottom”, and create a wave of centre-right unity behind him. However, his campaign, which occasionally lurched into the far-right Front National’s territory, was seen as divisive.

One of his first moves will be to change the party name. The UMP started life as the Union Pour La Majorité Présidentielle to support Jacques Chirac’s 2002 presidential re-election bid.

At the UMP headquarters in Paris’ 15th arrondissement on Saturday evening, the acronym UMP was nowhere to be seen.

Sarkozy will also need to urgently address the party’s finances; it is estimated to be €74m (£58.8m) in debt. Sarkozy has ruled out sacking any of the UMP’s staff of 85, but says he will attract new members.


In 2012 Sarkozy told journalists he would quit political life if he was defeated in the presidential election. Announcing his change of heart and return to the political fray in September, Sarkozy told French television it was his duty to make a comeback: “It’s not about what I want, it’s that I don’t have the choice”.

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