The French election Result in Caracas

Well, I should not be saying that but I am going ahead anyway: Sarkozy won in Caracas with 68% (at least from what I have been told). I say that because in the greater scheme of things it is meaningless, Sarkozy had already won Caracas on the first round with 55% so there was no way he would lose at the second round. In fact I can even say that this 68% is not great, that he should have reached 70% to reflect the polls in France, the 15% share he needs to get to overcome Royal.

But things are not looking good for Royal: at noon the turnout was higher than two weeks ago. In other words French folks are voting in even larger numbers than the record first round. The first conclusion is that the Le Pen call for abstention did not work and that his voters are all going out to vote in droves, presumably mostly for Sarkozy (some, perhaps 25% will vote for Royal, hoping that the Front National regains strength under a socialist administration, don't ask!). The Second conclusion is that the Bayrou voters decided to go out and vote and if the poll trends are true this is bad news for Royal too since the Bayrou vote was going more toward Sarkozy than Royal in spite of a clear rapprochement between Bayrou and Royal. In other words, if Sarkozy wins with at least 6 points lead with an even greater turnout than two weeks ago, then Bayrou has not much influence over his voters and his announced new political party is not going to start under the best omens.

Are we in fact witnessing a major redrawing of the French political map and we were not even having a clue? Nobody previewed the drop of Le Pen or the temporary surge of Bayrou. And now if these two characters have their voters decanting for Sarkozy in large numbers, what does it mean? A possible 55% vote for Sarkozy woudl be a true mandate by French standards and could embolden Sarkozy to actually implement some of his controversial changes. We'll see.

-The end-