FWDLog

The most important political contest of 2012, at least on this side of the Atlantic, will take place in France next spring.  Nearly 45 million French nationals will be eligible to vote in the two-round contest, April 22 and May 6, to elect the president of the Republic to a five-year term.  President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has yet to officially announce his candidacy, now officially has a Socialist challenger in Francois Hollande, who won his party’s nomination last month in an unprecedented, national, open primary election.  Hollande soundly defeated the head of the party, Martine Aubry, by nearly 400 thousand votes, more than thirteen percentage points.

From the tone of the babble over the last couple of months since the nation returned from summer holidays and the chattering classes began to speak about something other than DSK, one could have easily drawn the conclusion that political change would be inevitable, that the president, with approval ratings dipping below 30 percent, is facing certain defeat next year.

But this thing is far from over.  True, the open primary election proved a huge success for the Socialists, who needed some mojo after the DSK scandal.  And yes, no matter how much the French left and the fawning media establishment tried to paper over it, that untidy little business with DSK did not boost the Parti Socialiste (For a sad illustration of the depths to which a certain element of modern French society has fallen, see the nationally televised, and carefully staged interview of Dominique Strauss-Kahn following his return to France in which he speaks of his “moral weakness.”)

So following a troubled summer in which the national image took an international drubbing, the French public had good reason to be enthusiastic about this terrific exercise in democracy, the Socialist primary.  More than 2.6 million voters participated in the first round and more than 2.8 million in the second round.  Unlike any previous sort of primary election, all French voters had the possibility, in principle, to participate to select the Socialist candidate.  To be eligible, you had to meet certain basic requirements.  You had to be a registered voter (or, for minors, eligible to vote next year at the time of the 2012 presidential elections) and offer a minimum donation of one euro to help finance the primary.  You also had to sign a declaration of support for the “values of the Left,” including equality, fairness, progress and all that.  While doing so, the voters had the opportunity to provide certain personal information, like postal address and e-mail address, which of course is the invaluable bounty for the primary’s victor, Hollande, because his campaign will legally be able to use all that personal data.

By some estimates, the party raised nearly 4 million euros from the primary and collected between 600 thousand and 800 thousand e-mail addresses.  Compared to US campaign budgets and compared to the 13 million e-mail addresses that the Obama campaign collected during the 2008 campaign, that may not seem like much.  But for a political campaign in Europe, where spending limits are tighter and laws on privacy and personal data are much more restrictive, those are huge numbers.  And they did it in a matter of weeks.  Sarkozy’s campaign in 2007 is said to have had half that number of emails.

In the meantime, the president, as I noted in a previous post, was playing the politics of rarity.  That which is rare, under the law of supply and demand, grows dearer.  There’s been very little sign of a re-election campaign.  Once it does get underway, it will likely be run primarily from the Élysée, but to this day it’s still difficult to identify who it is that will serve as campaign chief.

So when the president took to the airwaves October 27 for a nationally televised joint interview with TF1 and France 2, entitled “France Confronting the Crisis,” it was his first such appearance in nearly nine months.  (The á propos was his return from the European summit where they “saved” Greece, until, that is, Papandreo returned home and announced a referendum…)  Nearly 12 million people tuned in to watch Monsieur le president deliver a stately performance from the Élysée.  In perspective, some 15 million tuned in for the France-New Zealand final of the Rugby World Cup in October.  ”My role as the president of the republic,” he explained, “is not to talk.  It’s not to comment on events.  It is to take decisions.  And I must go before the French and report to them the decisions that we have taken.”

So there it was.  With that he framed the whole contest and marked the beginning of what US politics calls the Rose Garden campaign, a reference to the White House rose garden where sitting US presidents frequently address the press.  This was Sarkozy at his finest, the president of all of France, serving the nation above the political fray.  Yes, times are tough, the sub-text implied.  No, we’re certainly not where we want to be economically.  But in the face of the most dire economic crisis that Europe has faced in a generation or more, and knowing that things will likely get worse before they get better, what the nation needs is a statesman, one who has the experience to manage such serious matters and the gravitas to stand eye-to-eye with the Germans for a cause much bigger than the petty partisan politics of France.

Presto! a six-point jump immediately following the interview, according to one poll.  Not only Sarkozy’s numbers saw a boost but, predictably, the bounce rippled across the center-right.  And he demonstrated again with his talent for communication his ability to reach non-base voters.  Some 55 percent of viewers found Sarkozy convincing to 45 percent who did not, according to another poll.  Among voters on the right, an overwhelming 81 percent were swayed but even among voters on the left, 11 percent found him convincing.

Dominate escalation, to borrow a phrase from the arms race.  Whatever momentum Hollande enjoyed coming out of the party primary had been dealt a critical blow.  Sarkozy’s 75-minute television appearance deftly demonstrated that the president’s re-election campaign holds a dominant weapon: Sarkozy himself, who still has the power to overwhelm.

A friend and close observer sums it up well: “The longer Hollande is candidate, the less presidential he becomes.”  On the right, the inverse is true.  The less we see of Sarkozy the candidate, the more presidential he seems.

No question it will be a tough slog.  Coming off the primary, the Socialists still enjoy a significant advantage in ground game and organization.  If they’re capable of leveraging their considerable database edge, that can make up for a lot.  But the PS election program, written months ago, calling for substantial increases in the state sector and spending is dead on arrival.  Meanwhile the UMP has lost precious time for growing its grassroots.  Ample evidence tells this author that much of France remains today sympathetic to the politics of the center-right.  But with unemployment at 9.6 percent, the challenge for Sarkozy’s UMP will be voter apathy.  Come Election Day, it will take more than an inspirational television interview to stir voters to the polls.  

Expectations.  Many argue that he has fallen short of what were enormous expections.  Nicolas Sarkozy’s rise to the leadership of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire and election in 2007 to the presidency signaled the advent of a new center-right in France.  Out of the fragments of the Chirac-inspired Rassemblement pour la Republique, he brought a new conservative thinking to power in France, one determined to shake-up entrenched socialist ideas about the role of the state in the economy and society and the role of France in the world.  This new center-right had exciting ambitions about how to reform the university system and public administration, about overturning non-sensical labor laws and lowering taxes to encourage growth.  It employed an entirely new vocabulary about the value of hard work and entrepreneurship.  It refused to accept France as an aging historical power but insisted on its leadership in the future, based on innovation and creativity.  And in an exceptional departure, it had very different views on the United States of America, seeing les americains not the same as Villepin saw the US, as the hyper-power that needed to be balanced but as a society that could be admired, even occasionally embraced, as a source of sometimes great ideas and a friend in the liberal order of western civilization.  This amity, at root, was based on a common affinity for just that, classical liberal ideas: the freedom of the individual.  When it comes right down to it, that is what set this new French center-right apart.  One hopes that, face á la crise, a return to these core liberal principles will ensure a second term.

With general elections in Serbia due in about a half a year, perhaps sooner, the winds of change are blowing.  The landscape of Serbian politics, if nothing else, remains one of the more dynamic in the region, and, as I found during my visit to Belgrade last week, the next few months promise an interesting struggle, both domestically and internationally, over who will offer a viable alternative to the current government led by the Democratic Party.

Clearly the one to watch is Tomislav Nikolic and his Serbian Progressive Party.  A recent poll shows the opposition SNS, as they are known by their acronym, winning 36 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections.  The Democratic Party of President Boris Tadic stands at 25.  If reliable, that would suggest that Nikolic has re-gained much of the support he lost following his hunger strike in April, when polls had SNS at 42 percent to the DP’s 25.  That tactical maneuver proved unfortunate for many reasons, not least of which because it apparently erased his 17 point advantage and left his party, and him, in a dead heat with DS and Tadic.  But polls suggest that what he has been insisting for weeks is becoming true, that support for the party is growing and they may be poised to send the DS  into opposition next year.

Tomislav Nikolic (left) with Štefan Füle, Member of the EC in charge of Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy

According to that same poll, the Radical Party would take 8 percent, the Socialists 7, and Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia and the Liberals would just cross the threshold at 5 percent each.  The survey found that 60 percent of likely voters would choose one of the two leading parties, the SNS or the DS.

During my visit, one campaign manager told me that the most reasonable date for the election would be in April, predicting the 22nd, after Orthodox Easter.  So it’s still early, but the question of offering an alternative is not so much about who would lead the charge.  The SNS seems to be the increasingly popular choice.  The interesting part of the contest is whether they can navigate a path to a stable political center and who they have to bring along with them to put a government together.

“They’re a legitimate political alternative,” said a well-informed friend when I asked him about the Progressive Party.

“Would you vote for them?” I prodded.

“No.  They’re not my cup of tea.  But look,” he continued, “for the first time since 2000 we have consensus among the major parties about an important issue [i.e., Europe].  There was never any consensus before, on anything.”  

He makes a compelling point.  Nikolic has led the SNS to a more centrist position on Europe, or what could be considered a reasonably center-right position in the realm of what is possible today in Serbia’s politics.  He has preserved for himself room to maneuver on the thorny question of Kosovo, but he has made it clear that his party sees Serbia’s future in Europe.  The result?  Those parties that remain opposed to the project of Euro-Atlantic integration, like the DSS and the Radicals, have been marginalized.  Relegated to the fringes, they’re finding that the air is growing thin in the fever swamps of Serbian isolationism.  From the Progressives, that’s a significant contribution.

The Progressives face a number of challenges over the next several months.  Firstly, they must maintain and continue to build their support.  Pollsters say that among likely voters the number of undecided remains high, at least 20 percent.  Many voters, disaffected by politics and what they see as an unresponsive, corrupt elite, say they’ll simply stay home on election day.  Can the Progressives reach these voters?  My friend, the one who sees them as a legitimate alternative, claims that Nikolic has reached his ceiling.  SNS peaks somewhere between 35 and 40, he claims, but that’s it.

That points us to the second challenge.  How would they form a coalition to govern, one that would not impede the Progressive’s tack to the pro-European center?  Nikolic, who came in first in the 2007 parliamentary elections as leader of the Radical Party, has been categorical in his statements that there would be no coalition with the DS.  According to the polls, among those that would cross the threshold, that leaves the Radical Party, the Socialists, the DSS and the Liberals.  Count also on G17+ and the Union of Regions of Serbia.  They’re not above 5 in recent polls, but thanks to one of the region’s most sophisticated campaign machines, which has mastered the art of get-out-the-vote, they always manage to cross the threshold.  Serbia is no stranger to peculiar coalition governments, but this one could be difficult.  Thought for coalition partners should figure into the Progressive’s overall strategy in the coming months.

If they are pulling away in the polls, there’s still much fretting about Nikolic and his Progressives, especially internationally.  Formed in 2008 from a breakaway group of Radical Party MPs, the party and its leader have much to overcome in their effort to improve their image and be seen as respectable company in the other capitals of Europe.  Occasionally their choice of friends has not helped matters (for example, their agreement on cooperation with Austria’s Freedom Party).  Clearly, as Kostunica’s DSS continues to fade, there’s a vacuum on the center-right of Serbian politics, but many observers maintain doubts about Nikolic’s ability and bona fides to fill it.

All these challenges point to a clear path for the Progressives, a path that leads toward the center.  The longer they are able to maintain a lead of more than ten points over their DS rivals, the more the other players, domestic and international, will have to reckon with them as the most likely alternative.  As the front-runners, the more the Progressives can reinforce a pro-European agenda, the easier it will be for others to accept them as the legitimate political alternative.

Courtesy of europeanvoice.com:

WHO YOU GONNA CALL? Neither Ghostbusters or the security services, apparently. According European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, he exchanged phone numbers with Henry Kissinger, who has for years been wondering who to call in Europe, when the two met in New York last month.

(Photograph by Council of Ministers.)