Can the far right sabotage the environmentalist primary?

It is a support which Sandrine Rousseau, candidate for the primary ecologist would have gone well. “Of course I will vote. In general, the vote is secret, but you know that I am an elected representative from the North and out of northern solidarity, I can only vote for Sandrine Rousseau, of course ”, said National Assembly deputy and party spokesperson Sébastien Chenu on Franceinfo Sunday, a few days before the start of the first round of the primary, this Thursday, September 16.

Before him, the parliamentary assistant and figure of the identities Damien Rieu had also indicated to have registered to vote for Sandrine Rousseau, denouncing his line on ecology considered too radical, and wishing, by voting for it, to weaken the ecologists.

Ready to make queen triumph @sandrousseau ? pic.twitter.com/dxARRz0dAM

– Damien Rieu (@DamienRieu) August 31, 2021

“There was no massive entryism”, reassures the party

What create a risk of entryism that would distort the entire election result? “This attempt at destabilization exists, but it is only the collateral effect of the call for citizen participation”, summarized Éva Sas, the spokesperson of the party, questioned by l’Express .

Of the 122,670 registered, are there many non-green activists? Impossible to know but the organizers of the primary do not believe in a risk of sabotage. “Statistical filters used by Neovote [le logiciel permettant le vote en ligne] demonstrate that there was no massive entryism ”, explained to Huffington Post the deputy national secretary of Europe Ecology The Greens, Sandra Regol, especially as “Some waves of registrations that posed a problem”, have been deleted but in normal proportions.

Each registrant also had to enter his name, a telephone number, a credit card number and an e-mail address which is not temporary. What to ensure a minimum of control even if this does not prevent, in theory, an opponent to register for the primary.

No past primary has been a victim of massive entryism

In the previous primaries, this risk has in any case never really posed a problem. “There is always this questioning and this fantasy of entryism in an open primary. What we can say on the basis of what we saw in 2016 or 2011 during the primaries is that it did not change the general tone of the ballot “, analysis Brice Teinturier, Deputy Managing Director of the Ipsos Institute, interviewed by West France.

Yes, some left-wing voters voted in the right-wing primary and vice versa, but not enough to change the ballot and that doesn’t necessarily mean they did so with malicious intent.

Brice Teinturier therefore does not believe in sabotage. “We have never seen a perversion of a primary. I don’t think there is a massive phenomenon of RN voters in this green primary ”, adds this political scientist.

Anyway, these initiatives of the extreme right lead to ask another question, to which it is impossible to provide an answer: who are really the more than 120,000 registered in this green primary? “We know absolutely nothing about this electorate. But that changes everything “, notes the political scientist Brice Teinturier.

“Perhaps they are more radical, more to the left and therefore more in favor of Piolle or Rousseau. Maybe on the contrary, that the registered are more likely to want to vote for the one who can weigh the most, Jadot? “, he sketches, cautiously. It is therefore impossible to anticipate a result.

“It means that we can have big surprises”, adds Brice Teinturier. “We will wait very wisely for the results of the ballot boxes “, He concludes, while no poll questioning only those registered for this primary has been carried out on this ballot.

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