We will have to ask for the VAR. The outgoing Olivier Faure and his rival Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol each claimed, on the night of Thursday to Friday, to have won voting designating the next First Secretary of the Socialist Party.
The situation is grotesque: around 1:30 a.m., Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol announced his victory to the press, followed a few minutes later by Olivier Faure on YouTube.
The activists “expressed this evening, by a clear vote, their desire to continue the rally of the left and environmentalists by renewing their confidence in me and by ensuring that I am once again the one who leads this great political formation”, a declared Olivier Faure, while Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol proclaimed for his part “a victorious ballot” and “53.47% of the votes out of 90% of ballots counted”, a “gap not recoverable” according to him.
“Methods that we have seen too many across the Atlantic”
A source close to Olivier Faure gives different figures, assuring 20 minutes that it is “clearly in the majority” and up “1 to 4% compared to last Thursday’s vote, and therefore that Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol does not benefit from a complete carryover of the votes” from Hélène Geoffroy, of whom he Would need.
These are “the only real figures that can be compiled”, assured the representative of the outgoing candidate, Pierre Jouvet, denouncing an “unacceptable destabilization” on the part of the opposing camp, and “methods that we have seen too much across the Atlantic “, in an allusion to the never recognized defeat of Donald Trump in the American presidential election of 2020. “Olivier Faure won the ballot with certainty”, he insisted.
“Irregularities” and ballot box stuffing
Poll supervisors not authorized to enter polling stations, ballot box stuffing: the two camps accused each other of numerous “irregularities” in the votes. Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol also requests “the cancellation of a certain number of results”, due to litigation, in particular in the Liévin section (Pas-de-Calais, around 300 votes).
A results commission is to meet on Friday. The winner must be officially inducted at a congress in a week in Marseille. The result could have consequences for the Nupes agreement concluded in May 2022 for the legislative elections with LFI, EELV and the PCF.