French Socialists get their maths wrong in leadership battle

The leadership battle for France's Socialist party should be decided tonight, and it'll see two women vying for the job - Ségolène Royal and Martine Aubry.

In Thursday's vote among the party's 233,000 card carrying members, none of the three candidates achieved the magical 50 per cent needed to claim victory.

The result of Thursday's vote: Royal - 43.1 per cent, Aubry - 34.5 per cent, and Benoît Hamon 22.83 per cent.

So as many predicted Royal and Aubry will go head to head in a re-vote today.

But hang about. Isn't there something just a tad strange in those figures? Anyone who has been following the Socialist party soap opera will surely be asking themselves what on earth is Royal still doing in the race?

Ah well it's all about the fact that complicated politics and simple maths don't always go together.

Let me (try to) explain and recap simultaneously.

In what has by any standards been one of the most protracted processes for choosing a new leader, party members will once again vote on whose vision of the future of the party they support.

Crudely put, a move to the centre - as proposed by Royal, or more traditionally left as Aubry wants.

A couple of weeks ago the party took its first step in supposedly determining its future direction when members voted on the so-called "motions" or programmes.

It wasn't a vote on the leadership per se, but on the alternative programmes - although both were and of course still are inextricably linked.

You might remember that Royal surprised most political pundits when her programme came top. It garnered 29 per cent of the vote followed by Aubry's and that of the mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë - both gained 25 per cent, and in fourth place Benoît Hamon's with 18 per cent.

So four programmes with a chance of winning overall approval and paving the way for a new leader to be "crowned".

That was the expectation going into the party's conference last weekend in Rheims, especially as everyone agreed that what the Socialists needed most was "unity" and that could best be achieved by rallying behind one programme and therefore one candidate.

Aubry and Hamon looked to be on the verge of reaching an agreement. They didn't. Aubry and Delanoë also tried to iron out their differences, but with the same non-result.

None of the others really wanted to "be friends" with Royal, although she apparently tried hard enough, sending them personalised letters and encouraging them to "come aboard".

They didn't. The only surprise being perhaps that after a weekend of "burning the midnight oil" Delanoë withdrew from the leadership battle (by not entering it), but refused to endorse any of the others.

So the party came away from the conference with the choice of three candidates, and it was up to party members to choose between them.

The very next day there was a coup de théâtre as Delanoë changed his mind - not about standing, but about who he would endorse - Aubry. And he urged his supporters to vote for her "massively".

So the maths looked quite simple. Aubry's 25 per cent, plus Delanoë's 25 per cent with hopefully some others joining the non-declared TSS ("Tout-sauf-Ségolène" or "Anything but Ségolène") campaign and bingo. Surely a shoo-in for Aubry.

"Outrageous" claimed Royal over the coming days. Underhand tactics she implied, and although she never actually said it overtly, once again evidence of another cleverly played TSS campaign.

Hamon meanwhile took the moral high ground and criticised everyone, saying he wasn't going to be part of it, and therefore he was the natural choice of leader (all right so a tiny bit of paraphrasing going on here in the interests of making a long story less long).

But in spite of seemingly simple sums, as Thursday's results show, it didn't quite turn out the way Aubry, Delanoë and the rest had hoped

The next twist of course is that Hamon has now turned around and urged his supporters to vote "massively" for.......wait for it......Aubry.

So once again the maths would appear to indicate that it's game, set and match for Aubry. After all 34.5 plus 22.83 would give her more than the 50 per cent needed for victory.

But remember her opponent is Ségolène Royal - discounted by most from the start, and apparently the person everyone in the party wants to beat, but has so far been unable to.

When she ran for the party's nomination to be the presidential candidate last year, she was up against the might and power of its old guard "elephants". But her appeal to the grass roots eventually saw her nomination reluctantly "endorsed" by all her opponents.

So who would bet against her defying the pundits (and the maths) once again?

One thing's for certain, it'll be a woman leading the party - the first time one has been elected to that position here in France.

Whatever the result though, what it probably won't do is stop the internal bickering as whichever woman wins, there will still remain a sizeable chunk of the party disillusioned with the outcome.