Among elected officials, many have feared it for many months: a new postponement of departmental and regional elections. Already postponed to June 2021, the elections could be moved again this fall in the face of the persistence of the covid-19 epidemic.
On Wednesday evening, during the consultation with parliamentarians, and in accordance with what was planned, the Prime Minister indicated that he would wait for the delivery of the opinion of the Scientific Council on April 1 to maintain or not the regional elections in June. Concretely, the option of postponing them is not “ruled out”, confided to Public Senate Patrick Kanner, the boss of the Socialist senators. “Basically, there is a mortgage, but you don’t need to be a senior clerk to know that if the traffic is high, a decision will be made,” abounded the president of the centrists Hervé Marseille. “If the Council’s opinion is negative, a new text will be needed,” he, the president of the environmental group Guillaume Gontard, was already anticipating.
Postponement end of September, beginning of October
This Thursday, the Figaro reveals that the executive is planning to summon the party leaders in early April to agree on a consensual decision. “The President’s obsession is to protect people. He will not make a decision, including maintaining a campaign, that would go against this. We feel, without betraying a secret, that the situation is worse today than yesterday and it would be surprising if the virus regresses in two weeks or three weeks, ”explains the entourage of the Head of State on a daily basis.
It is indeed the organization of the electoral campaign that concerns the castle. “If we do not have a period of two months during which people can meet, it is complicated to campaign,” continues the Elysee. A legal vehicle would also already be “almost ready”. As Guillaume Gontard predicted, the government would then present a new text to Parliament in April to postpone the elections this fall, in September or October.
“I am convinced that the regional ones will not take place in June”
A heavy decision which would not be without political and technical consequences. First, it will be necessary to clarify the potential overlap of the campaign accounts of the regional and departmental elections with those of the presidential campaign. Then, because some parties have made this election a quasi-primary to determine their presidential candidate. In particular on the right where Xavier Bertrand made his re-election in Hauts-de-France the sine qua non of his presence in the race for the Elysée.
Postponing the elections would upset the agenda of the Republicans who must meet in early September to decide between the many putative candidates. “I do not understand that we can postpone a democratic deadline”, worried on Sud Radio Tuesday the secretary general of LR Aurélien Pradié, himself a candidate for regional in Occitanie. Yet the Republican staff has been preparing for the prospect of a postponement for some time. “I am convinced that the regional ones will not take place in June. We are thinking about it ”, confided to us a few weeks ago a tenor from the rue de Vaugirard. See you in April.
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