yesterday was the first round of the Parliamentary elections in France, which saw Nicolas Sarkozy's party take an impressive lead and with it the prospect of having a massive majority in the Assemblee Nationale. This was to be expected. By electing Sarko with such a wide lead during the presidential elections in May, voters had shown they were looking for a new and strong government, and this election was for many simply a confirmation of that choice.
One thing that did come to my attention was that most of the members of the new government were told by their new boss to uphold their candidacies in order to win a seat in the assembly, apparently to show that they had the confidence of their constituents. That even goes for government chief Francois Fillon, who handily won reelection in his native Sarthe. Now campaigning for your party "friends" I can understand, but when you've just been chosen as government minister, what's the point of being a candidate to a seat which you will not occupy if you do get elected? I mean Frankie boy, you're the newly designated Prime Minister. Of the entire country. Seriously, don't you have other things to worry about than making sure yours and your ministers' names are on the winning lists?
The main argument that was presented by Fillon and Sarkozy was that this election would provide their new government members the opportunity to partake in a referendum of sorts on their legitimacy. But they've only been in place for a month, at most, so it seems a tad early for voters to have any kind of informed opinion on what kind of job the government is doing. And if these ministers are going to let their second in command seat at the Assemby anyway (ministers are forbidden by law to hold more than one seat), why go through the travesty of presenting themselves as the main candidates, and have people vote for them? Can they even pretend the election means something? Personnally I'm more interested in learning what sort of solutions to the many problems facing France this team will come up with, than in hearing about their performance in an election that generally feels like an afterthought following the Presidential one. This is probably more of a PR move, to put government members in the best possible light before the sure-to-be tough months laying ahead, but like all campaigns based on image, the underlying message rings disheartingly hollow.
One thing that did come to my attention was that most of the members of the new government were told by their new boss to uphold their candidacies in order to win a seat in the assembly, apparently to show that they had the confidence of their constituents. That even goes for government chief Francois Fillon, who handily won reelection in his native Sarthe. Now campaigning for your party "friends" I can understand, but when you've just been chosen as government minister, what's the point of being a candidate to a seat which you will not occupy if you do get elected? I mean Frankie boy, you're the newly designated Prime Minister. Of the entire country. Seriously, don't you have other things to worry about than making sure yours and your ministers' names are on the winning lists?
The main argument that was presented by Fillon and Sarkozy was that this election would provide their new government members the opportunity to partake in a referendum of sorts on their legitimacy. But they've only been in place for a month, at most, so it seems a tad early for voters to have any kind of informed opinion on what kind of job the government is doing. And if these ministers are going to let their second in command seat at the Assemby anyway (ministers are forbidden by law to hold more than one seat), why go through the travesty of presenting themselves as the main candidates, and have people vote for them? Can they even pretend the election means something? Personnally I'm more interested in learning what sort of solutions to the many problems facing France this team will come up with, than in hearing about their performance in an election that generally feels like an afterthought following the Presidential one. This is probably more of a PR move, to put government members in the best possible light before the sure-to-be tough months laying ahead, but like all campaigns based on image, the underlying message rings disheartingly hollow.
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