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Sarkozy wins UMP ballot

Ian JohnsonNovember 29, 2014

France's divided conservative UMP party has picked ex-president Nicholas Sarkozy to be its leader but with less votes than anticipated. Sarkozy is reputed to be aiming for France's 2017 presidential election.

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Frankreich Nicolas Sarkozy UMP
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Olivier Corsan/Le Parisien

France's opposition conservative UMP party on Saturday declared Sarkozy the winner of an electronic ballot among party members with 64.5 percent. He defeated two former government ministers Bruno Le Maire and Herve Mariton.

Le Maire, a former agriculture minister and diplomat, got 29 percent of the ballot. Algeria-born Mariton trailed on 6 percent.

Nearly 270,000 dues-paying members had been eligible to take part in the ballot within the UMP whose 2012 presidential election loss degenerated into accusations of fraud and ballot-stuffing.

Sarkozy, who himself faced questioning in July, replaces a trio of former prime ministers who were installed to lead the UMP. That followed the resignation of Jean-Francois Cope in May amid a scandal over overspending for Sarkozy's 2012 bid.

Political analysts had previously suggested that the 59-year-old Sarkozy, who launched his comeback in September, needed to get at least 70 percent to be confident of securing the UMP's presidential candidacy for 2017.

Chief among his UMP presidential rivals is Alain Juppe, a former colleague turned arch-foe, who has already declared his readiness. The opposition party's primaries are due in 2016.

Defeated in 2012

In 2004, Sarkozy won the UMP's chairmanship with 85 percent of the vote and went on to become French head of state from 2007 until his defeat in 2012.

Sarkozy had toured the country ahead of the UMP ballot while slamming what he called the "mediocrity" of the unpopular Socialist government under incumbent President Francois Hollande.

Surveys show that Hollande is the least-popular French leader in modern history, largely for his failure to fix double-digit unemployment.

Far-right holds congress

Sarkozy's re-emergence coincided Saturday with the party congress in Lyon of the far-right Front National. The FN caused a sensation in EU elections in May by scoring 25 percent.

The niece of current leader Marine Le Pen, Marion-Marechal Le Pen, was running for the party's executive. She is a granddaughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine is one of his daughters.

ipj/glb (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)