I dabble in the punditry business from time to time and since the French are having themselves an election to select a new President, and below are my figures. I suspect that support for Sego is weak and Bayrou will surprise by sneaking past her.
Sarkozy - 26%
Sego - 22%
Bayrou - 23%
Le Pen - 18 %
Rest 11%
Time now is 16.15 GMT
3 comments:
As good a time as any to raise the question -- why don't they switch to a single round of STV voting? Some of the Bayrou support is surely people who think Sego can't beat Sarko in the 2nd round. STV would take out most of the strategic voting and let people vote more their preferences. I think your prediction is quite reasonable -- and note how right-wing (in French terms) it makes the country look.
Not a bad point at all, I find some of the horse trading between the rounds to be quite disturbing. I would favour a system that allowed all those over a threshold of say 10 or 12.5 or 15% to go into a 2nd round with full PR-STV being used at that round. Others I have discussed it with favour the one round full STV.
I, also, think that Bayrou could beat Sarko in the 2nd round as all the Trots (3 of them in the first round for Christ's sakes!) and the left could rally round him to fend off Sarko.
The reason I think Bayrou could sneak past Sego is some on the hard left may vote for one of the other left candidates as they feel she is too compromised and many younger people may feel she is too much of the same. It's all down to a few percentages. Or that could all be famous last words as Le Pen sneaks into 2nd again.
At least, I'm not Noel Whelan charging €40 for the pleasure of my guesstimates!
Another cut on the results is to classify some of the candidates as "rural." Arguably one could do that for Bove, Schivardi (one of the trots), and Nihous (the hunters' candidate). One of the other themes of the election was the increasing disaffection of rural france especially as Chirac, who was kind of unifying figure between paris and the provinces, moves on. Those 3 could add up to several million people and an important group to be courted in the 2nd round. Bayrou has a little edge there perhaps -- he can drive a tractor.
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