Mitterrand penned in
Sam White
Paris
It will be only after the second round of voting in the Cantonal elections this Sunday that President Mitterrand will de- cide whether to introduce an element of proportional representation into the French electoral system or leave it as it stands, with constituency representation based on a second ballot for those candi- dates who fail to get an outright majority in the first. The decision is a crucial one for on it will depend the state of the parties in the new National Assembly due to be elected in a year's time, as well as M. Mitterrand's own chances of surviving as President until his own term of office runs out in 1988. Much will depend, in making up the President's mind for him, on how complete is the transfer of Communist votes to Socialist candidates in the second round.
If it is on a fairly satisfactory scale, then the President will be tempted to leave matters as they stand, knowing that in the last resort he will be assured of the bulk of the Communist vote without risking having to pay a price for it. If on the other hand Communist voters do not heed the call for `Republican discipline' in sufficient num- bers then M. Mitterrand will be equally tempted to take the risk of some form of proportional representation alongside the present system and thereby run the risk that by so doing he will be opening the doors of the Assembly to a horde of the National Front followers of Jean-Marie Le Pen. The great problem he has to resolve in all this is to prevent the respectable Right from getting an absolute majority in the next parliament thereby enabling it to form a government independent of either Socialist or extreme Right support. In short, to give them a choice, which would split them down the middle, between union with him or union with Le Pen. Neither this possibility nor that of getting large- scale Communist support in the second round offers much hope at the moment, judging by the outcome of last Sunday's vote.
To begin with, the present parliamentary opposition obtained 50 per cent of the vote, rendering it independent of support from Le Pen. Secondly, the Communist vote which, as we shall see later, confirmed the party's decline, is unlikely to switch mas- sively behind the Socialists, although the Communist leadership is at the moment giving tongue in cheek support to the somewhat mystical and rather mythical doctrine of 'Republican solidarity'.
The present system of voting in par- liamentary elections is of course, like the British system, unfair to minorities and it is this which led the Socialist party to commit itself to introducing a dose of proportional representation when it was itself' in opposi- tion. Since then the existing system has worked to its advantage. In 1981 it exagger- ated a marginal swing to the Left into a parliamentary landslide giving the Social- ists alone an absolute majority in the Assembly. It won't happen next time when, on the contrary, the swing will go the other way, reducing Socialist repre- sentation to little more than a rump of its former self. Not only that, but at least three quarters of the Socialist leadership risks being swept away in the counter-tide. Hence the renewed appeal of some form of PR which the Socialists can always claim is not a piece of opportunism but an integral part of their programme. Unfortunately they have left this proposed reform too late to make it seem anything more than a piece of political gerrymandering. If it was a simple matter of electoral justice why did they not introduce it in their first year or two in office? Why have they waited until their term is nearly over?
There is now every reason to believe that the scepticism such a move would provoke, quite apart from giving Le Pen a par- liamentary forum, is making M. Mitter- rand have second thoughts on the subject. In any case some of his best friends, like Jean Daniel, the editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, are having them, and it is doubtful if they would have given public voice to their doubts without discussing them first with the President. To others, less committed to the President but well disposed to him, like M. Fontaine, the present editor of Le Monde, the advantage of scrapping a system which has been In force since the foundation of the Fifth Republic and which has the virtue of producing stable majorities seems dubious if in exchange one is to get a parliamentary system at the mercy of minorities similar to that which prevailed under the preceding Republic. In short the President, if he goes ahead with his proposed electoral reform, risks getting the worst of both worlds. If he does not go ahead with it the Socialists face .a heavy defeat and if he does the move will be so suspect in the eyes of the electorate that the consequences will be just about the same. In any case, a Fourth Republic veteran like M. Mitterrand should know better than to place his hopes in the successors of Pierre Poujade to provide means of splitting the present Opposition.. If a split occurs after the 1986 elections, it is much more likely to occur in the ranks of M. Le Pen's followers than among those of the present parliamentary Opposition lead- ers. The latter may be divided, as indee. d they are on the issue of 'cohabitation' with the existing President, between M. Barre on the one hand and M. Chirac and Giscard on the other but these two divi- sions will be as nothing compared with those which will develop within the swollen ranks of opportunists that M. Le Pen will trail behind him into the National Assembly. It is more than likely that, once elected, a high percentage of them will vote not as M. Le Pen tells them but as their own interest in a new-found career dictates. As to last Sunday's results, Le Pen did well to get a little over eight per cent of the vote which is less than the 11 per cent he got in last year's European elections, fought incidentally under proportional rep- resentation, because cantonal elections provide a bonus vote for so-called Notables and Le Pen's party, being new, had none of these to offer to the electorate. In contrast to his relatively modest showing elsewhere he did frighteningly well in the south .of France with some of his candidates conung top of the poll with about 30 per cent of the vote. This is, of course, the region packed with Arab immigrants, and it is difficult to see how in departments like Bouches du Rhone and Var the respectable Right can avoid striking some bargains with him. As for the Communists, they did a percentage point better than in the European election.s but dismally badly in comparison with their votes in previous cantonal elections — 16 per cent for example in 1982 and nearly 23 per nt r cent 1976 as against their present 12 p
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