El Che
26th April 2002, 11:20
The French left achived a total of 44% of the vote in the elections, devided between 9 candidates. When you think about it this is really a sign of vitality and puralism within the French left. More so because leftist voters were not seducted (and rightfully so) by the temptation of "usefull voting". That is to say they didn`t vote for the lesser of 2 evils but rather they voted for the party they believed in. So in effect the french left was defeated due to excess of democracy! Personaly I think that 3 candidates should be present in the second round of the elections since only with 3 cadidates do you achive 50% of the total vote. Keep in mind that the reason why there is a second round of elections in the first place is because non of the cadidates achived a majority of at least 50% of the vote. Now in the current case only with a second round with Chirac, Le Pen and Jospen would achive the 50% mark(53%), this would allow leftist voters to vote for the socialist cadidate, and even if that implies a thrid round I still think its better and more democraticaly healthy, in that it promotes pluralism.