Latest update March 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 26, 2017 Editorial, Features / Columnists
The late baseball star player, Yogi Berra, is credited with coining the phrase “It’s not over until it’s over.” He was referring to a baseball game that went into extra innings. This is exactly the situation in France which held its presidential elections on Sunday April 23, 2017.But since there is no clear winner, the elections are not over.
The French Constitution states that if no candidate secures an absolute majority of the votes cast in the first round, a second round is held two weeks later between the two candidates who received the most votes.
With 11 candidates on the ballot, no one was expected to win an outright majority. The only two leading contenders who were seen as having a realistic prospect of making it through to the second round of voting on May 7, 2017 are the far-right National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, and centrist newcomer and political novice, Emmanuel Macron, of the En Marche party.
François Hollande of the Socialist Party (PS) was eligible to run for a second term, but decided not to seek reelection due to low approval ratings. It is the first French presidential election in which an incumbent did not seek reelection and the candidates of the main parties are not in the run-off election.
The election has shaken up the political landscape in France and has sharply divided the country that traditionally has been split between the left and the right. It means that France’s 47 million registered voters have a choice between the 47 year old far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen and the 39-year-old centrist, Emmanuel Macron. Le Pen who gained 22 percent of the vote and Macron, who earned 24 percent in last Sunday’s first-round ballot have turned a new page in France’s political history.
Security, immigration and the economy are the top issues for most of the voters. However, given her far-right radical views, Le Pen exploited the insecurity faced by the voters by blaming France’s current immigration policies for exacerbating the country’s unemployment rate and contributing to the recent deadly terrorist’s attacks on the citizens.
If elected, Le Pen pledged have a moratorium on legal immigration to the country, as well as closing “Islamist” mosques and expelling Islamic radicals. She has also vowed to exit France from the European Union, as well as the border-free Schengen area. It is another Brexit in the making.
The far-right Le Pen has seen her popularity surge in recent weeks, following her impressive performances in the presidential television debates. But her extremist views which also include withdrawing France from NATO andthe International Monetary Fund are unlikely to appeal to most voters in the second run-off.
On the other hand, Macron, a former economy minister who was never elected to office hopes to take the centrist path to the Elysee Palace with support from the left and the right and with promises to boost the economy, improve security and reduce immigration.
His party, En Marche which was only created in September 2016, now has more than 200,000 members. As the battle for the second voting started, Macron centrist message resonated with the people including President Hollande who threw his support behind his former economy minister. In a televised address, Hollande told French voters that they should reject Le Pen’s policies which are divisive and would stigmatizesections of the French population.
Many other leaders also threw their support behind Macron andurged the people to vote for him.
The business-friendly Macron is worried by Le Pen’s pledges to ditch the Euro, print money, expel foreigners and possibly quit the European Union. He said that a vote for Le Pen would risk France’s future, divide the country, threaten its membership in the Europe Union and reduce its status and place in the world.
Despite polls which indicate a clear victory for Macron, many fear that a vote for Le Pen could be another anti-establishment shock to follow Britain’s “Brexit” vote, and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president.
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