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After party leadership loss, Royal prepares 2012 presidential run
Nov 26, 2008, 9:15 GMT
Paris - Despite a bitter defeat in the vote to head the French Socialist Party, former presidential candidate Segolene Royal is apparently preparing to stand for the 2012 presidential election.
In a video available on Wednesday on the internet, Royal tells her supporters, 'I need you, I need your ideas, because we are continuing - 2012 is soon, 2012 is tomorrow, 2012 is in three years.'
On Tuesday, after four days of bitter infighting, the Socialist Party declared that Royal lost last Friday's party leadership election to Lille Mayor Martine Aubry by only 102 votes out of 135,000 cast.
The party leadership campaign split the Socialists along largely pro-Royal and anti-Royal lines, and the defeat was thought to make it very difficult for the 55-year-old Royal to make another presidential run. She was handily beaten by Sarkozy in the 2007 election.
However, in the video Royal appears to be saying that she intends to build up her own power base within the party, with her own team of advisors and her own political structure.
'I am continuing,' she told her fans in the video. 'I am continuing more than before.'
According to a poll made public on Wednesday, despite the loss to Aubry, Royal remains the favourite among Socialist Party supporters to be the party's presidential candidate in the 2012 election.
The survey by the BVA institute found that 30 per cent of Socialist Party backers want Royal to be their candidate in 2012, compared to 27 per cent for International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn and only 20 per cent for Aubry.
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rchapmanNov 26th, 2008 - 14:04:39
I think it is time for Segolene Royal to recognize that she is a divisive figure in the Socialist movement and to step back and rethink her position.
From the perspective of a rank and file socialist, Ms. Martine offers many of the same leadership attributes as Ms. Royal. Ms. Martine's accession to the leadership of the Socialist Party shows that its leadership selection process is still grounded in principle rather than in personality.
The socialism that Ms. Royal espouses is too theoretical and too removed from the experience of the ordinary citizen to attract support from any but the most doctrinaire adherents to Socialism. Ms. Royal's candidacy for the Presidency foundered on this lack of popular support and it is unlikely that she will be able to expand her support.
Ms. Martine puts a much more human and practical face on socialism. As party leader we can expect her to continue to work toward socialist programs that retain our principles while simultaneously expanding our support among the world's workers.
France is the only leading power that retains a socialist party, hence the future of the French socialist party is a matter of major global importance. Ms. Martine should be given a chance to show that Socialists can govern and expand their number of supporters.
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