Presidential 2022: LR will use polls to choose his candidate

The Greek calends finally have their date: the Republicans hope to have nominated their 2022 presidential candidate "in November".

It was this Wednesday, June 9 in the morning, during their strategic council, that the LR tauliers finally decided on a calendar and a semblance of method to find the name of their future champion in the race for the Elysee.

As announced by the Parisian - Today in France, the mayor (LR) of Antibes Jean Leonetti has been appointed to be the "wise man" who will oversee the entire construction process of this candidacy. Small novelty: The Republicans will work in partnership with political scientist Pascal Perrineau, researcher at Sciences-po, on the development of two large qualitative surveys on a panel of 15,000 people. They should be used to question supporters of the right and the center on the identity of the personality best placed to win the right, still caught between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. In short, a sort of primary poll… to hope that this avoids having to resort to a simple primary! The first wave of this survey will be released on September 20, and a second wave in October.

For some, Jacob "saves time" in the hope of a candidacy Baroin

"Either we have a candidate who crushes the match, or we will be on a selection process that we will prepare upstream," said LR president Christian Jacob on Wednesday leaving the strategic council.

That is to say that if, in view of the two surveys, to which will obviously be added the independent surveys, no one stands out, it will indeed be necessary to organize a sort of primary.

How? 'Or' What ?

How long ?

Open, closed?

Mystery.

Charge to Jean Leonetti, they say, to move forward on this subject.

Christian Jacob insisted that the important thing was to obtain "a rally candidate", behind which all the suitors would agree to side.

And to be able to put this “France team” on the road towards 2022.

At LR's strategic board, many raised their eyebrows, finding the whole process "ambiguous", in the words of one of them. Some wanted the party to speed up on the question of its candidate, in order to prevent LREM and the RN from taking advantage of the absence of a leader on the right to weaken them. Alas, they have the impression that Christian Jacob "wins time", still hoping that his friend François Baroin takes the plunge, even though he has expressed his refusal to compete. “It condemns us to emptiness, to cacophony. And it is impossible to criticize since there is a timetable. But, in real life, it freezes any initiative, ”blows a tenor on the verge of despair.

Another blind spot: Xavier Bertrand, still slightly the best placed in the polls on the right, continues to insist that he will be a candidate, whatever happens. "He said

in the primary", reminded us in flowery terms one of his relatives, very recently. He is unlikely to wait for the results of the LR investigations to launch his own campaign. The right is already promised a good comeback.