Retailleau proposes a one-round primary by October 2021 (Archives) -

NICOLAS MESSYASZ / SIPA

The next presidential election is getting ready.

If some candidates have already positioned themselves on the starting line, other parties are still considering the designation of their foal.

This Wednesday, we learn that the boss of senators Les Républicains, Bruno Retailleau, wants his party to organize a one-round primary by October 2021 to nominate its presidential candidate.

Otherwise LR risks, according to him, to disappear.

"Only a democratic consultation of right-wing voters will allow the debate of ideas and the confrontation of the personalities necessary for the emergence of a rally candidacy", affirms Bruno Retailleau in a note sent Wednesday to members of the leadership of the Republicans.

A list of names in order of preference

For him, we need “a one-round voting system” with a “preferential vote”, where each voter would vote for a list of names in order of preference.

The question is sensitive: written into the statutes, the primary is seen by the leadership of LR as a potential bearer of divisions, with the risk of appointing a candidate who is initially pleasant but too radical to appeal to a wider electorate, while the right has already been absent from the second round in 2017.

Bruno Retailleau, who is laying the groundwork for 2022, fears that the management will bypass the choice of members in favor of a candidate who has left LR (Xavier Bertrand or Valérie Pécresse for example).

A “tie-breaker” in sight?

Faced with this situation, the president of the Senate Gérard Larcher announced in October that he was going to prepare with the president of LR Christian Jacob a “tie-breaker system”.

Who could vote?

For Bruno Retailleau, anyone who has signed “a charter of values” and left their contact details, with a contribution of “5 euros”.

As for the candidates, he proposes to lower the sponsorship thresholds to 150 local elected officials (instead of 250) and 2,500 voters in the primary (at the link of 5,000 LR members).

As for the calendar, according to the patron of senators, a congress would be needed to modify the statutes in March / April 2021, a start of the campaign in early July and a “mid-October” ballot.

"A not very legitimate candidate or, worse, a double candidacy, would lead to the failure of our party from the first round" of the presidential election with "the risk of our political family disappearing in the coming years", he warns.

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  • The Republicans

  • Primary

  • Bruno Retailleau

  • Presidential election

  • Elections