Vote rigging claims split French party
The Martine Aubry-Segolène Royal rivaly has long threatened to split the Socialist Party
Photo: ANP
France's main opposition party is reeling from allegations that its leadership contest was rigged to force out former leader and presidential candidate Ségolène Royal.
The French Socialist Party finally saw a light at the end of a long tunnel of disabling internal disputes at the end of August when its leader finally agreed that it would hold US-style primaries to choose its candidate for the 2012 presidential elections. But the allegations in a new book, Hold-ups, arnaques et trahisons (Hold-ups, Scams and Betrayals), have thrown the party back into disarray.
Excerpts from the book published in the French media claim that Royal only lost out to her bitter rival Martine Aubrey in the November 2008 Socialist leadership race because of ballot stuffing.
Former employment minister Aubrey only won by a margin of 102 votes, but according to the various sources cited up to 1,000 of the votes for her were fakes.
"I felt shocked when I thought about the thousands of Socialist Party members whose votes were stolen from them," Royal told French TV. She vowed to give a fuller reaction to the allegations after she had had chance to study them in full.
Aubrey dismissed the claims, joking: "I'm not going to read the book, I'll wait for the film!"
But nevertheless the row will do nothing to turn around the once-powerful party's run of dismal election results, the most recent being its poor showing in June's European elections.
Paris correspondent Grainne Harrington explains how the Socialist Party row is playing out:
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