The popular Primary candidate announces that she is withdrawing from the presidential race this Wednesday noon. Two days before the deadline to collect her sponsorships, she was far from 500 signatures.
End clap for Christiane Taubira. Nearly three months after entering the campaign, the former Keeper of the Seals announced this Wednesday at midday that she is withdrawing from the presidential race. “Despite the very strong mobilization of volunteers from the Taubira 2022 collective, the popular Primary, my campaign team, a few elected officials who made the courageous choice to obey their conscience rather than their party […]it is obvious that we will not collect the 500 sponsorships necessary to compete in the presidential election. The fault, therefore, among others, with a cruel lack of sponsorships.
Two days before the deadline to collect the signatures required to be officially a candidate, the former deputy was only able to collect 181. Her campaign would therefore have stopped at the end of the week anyway. Christiane Taubira just preferred to press the “stop” button herself.
Campaign launched late
In her speech to the press, the former Minister of Justice said she regretted that the current system does not allow a candidacy like hers, although invested by nearly 400,000 people in the popular Primary, cannot compete. And to denounce a “fracture between institutions and citizens”, “this disintegration” who “weakens the Republic”.
Christiane Taubira also takes note that the union of the left that she calls for and to which she has, according to her, tried to contribute by entering the presidential arena will not happen. “The state of the left concerns us because it is she who has the answers to our ideals. His condition is what it is, she concedes. For our part, we did what could be done, and the best we could. I recalled the situation with which we were confronted: the impasse. […] The union of the left remains impossible. She lets it be known that she will announce her “first round vote” in “the next weeks”.
Thirty-nine days before the presidential election, Christiane Taubira puts an end to a campaign launched late. After several months of lobbying by a group of citizens – the “Taubira 2022” collective – which pleads for the former MP to be a candidate, the Guyanese comes out of the woodwork on December 17. In a video posted on social mediashe then explains “to consider” to stand in the presidential election, while ensuring that she will not be “one more application” and that she wants to contribute to the union of the left. At that time, she makes an appointment a month later, in January: she will say whether she is going or not. But everyone has understood that she is going into the race. From December 18, she is also traveling to Saint-Denis.
Stuck in polls
She declares herself officially a month later, in Lyon, in the Croix-Rousse district. Few days ago, in Bondyshe explains that she agrees to participate at the People’s Primarythis citizens’ initiative which aims to lead to a single candidacy on the left. “I will accept the verdict”, she says then. Problem, none of the other candidates on the left want to participate in the ballot, all have harsh words towards the initiative. On January 30, she therefore logically and clearly won the ballot. A victory that does not dissipate the vagueness, far from it. Finally, she is indeed one more candidate.
Over the months, the dynamic so hoped for internally, especially after his triumph at the Popular Primary, will never happen. Christiane Taubira does not take off in the polls and remains stuck between 2 and 4%. Her poor performance during an oral on poor housing at the Abbé-Pierre Foundation does not help her to recover and gives the image of a candidate who is not sufficiently prepared for the presidential election. It must also face other difficulties, such as the withdrawal of his campaign from the Radical Left Party in mid-February, on the pretext that she did not manage to make the union. By the way, the small party takes with it many sponsorships necessary to qualify. This will ultimately be the fatal obstacle.