While only members will be able to elect the candidate at the Congress, the party recorded nearly 69,000 additional memberships, for a total of nearly 150,000 registrants.
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Five candidates, two towers, and … 148 862 voters. Two weeks from the Congress of the Party The Republicans (RSA), which will be held by the 1th of December and during which the members shall designate their candidate for the presidential election, the electorate is now known . The registration deadline was fixed at midnight, Tuesday, November 16th.
This figure of 148,862, formalized by the Party Wednesday, is a first satisfaction for the movement chaired by Christian Jacob. He finds some of his limbs lost after more than ten years of almost uninterrupted hemorrhage. The UMP had 370,000 members after Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in the presidential election, in 2007. LR, who succeeded him, was only about 240,000 in 2016 and 80,000 in September 2021. This rise. 70,000 members in a few weeks makes this internal ballot even more undecided. Xavier Bertrand, Valérie Pécresse, Michel Barnier, Eric Ciotti or Philippe Juvin, what candidate will benefit from this increase? Person within the party does not dare to prognostic.
It is the choice, operated in September, from the holding of a congress – reserved for the members of the day of contributions – instead of a primary open to all the French signatories of a charter, like In 2016, who pushed the number of right sympathizers to take or resume their card. In Paris, the Federation wanted to enjoy “this shooting window to revive memberships,” says his president, Agnès Evren. A series of actions has been put in place to bring back former members or to find new ones: telephone goaling, reminders by email, tract in the markets …
“We feel a momentum”
In a few weeks, the Federation went from 4,100 people to date of contributions to more than 10,000 . “This increase is largely explained by the return of the former members of 2018 and 2019”, estimates M me Evren, who also sees a good eye the return of voters who had Turned to Emmanuel Macron. “They are very disappointed, they did not find what they were looking for voting for him,” she explains, perceiving there “a return to the fundamentals of the right” in these sympathizers.
But this evolution does not affect that the big federations. In the Landes too, historical bastion of the Socialist Party, we saw new members arrive. From 400, at the end of August, the Landais section crossed the 700 member mark before the deadline. “A few months ago, we had little returns on our actions, but since the announcement of the Congress, one feels an enthusiasm, an impulse,” says Arnaud Tauzin, Mayor of Saint-Sever and Departmental Secretary. According to him, this movement is explained by the will of the militants of the right to “choose their candidate for the presidential”. Also installed “at home the idea that alternation in 2022 is possible thanks to LR”. A feeling shared by all the parties’ frameworks.
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