By KUNA,
Paris : The National Council of France’s Socialist Party will meet Tuesday night to decide on the appointment of party heavy-weight Marine Aubry as new Party Secretary after a bitter election race saw her apparently defeat former Presidential candidate Segolene Royal last Thursday.
The victory margin obtained by Aubry was so slim that a voting commission is currently examining the ballot to determine if the result was legitimate.
Royal, 54, has said that there were a number of anomalies that could not possibly have allowed for a fair vote and she is insisting on a re-run.
Royal’s camp are claiming that there is only a difference of four votes between the two front-runners in an election that had over 100,000 ballots and this cannot allow the National Council to proclaim victory for one or the other of the contenders.
The Socialist Party is in disarray after the campaign and the bitter struggle between three different trends in the party.
Royal, who lost to President Nicolas Sarkozy in last May’s election, says she wants to renovate the party, which she says has stagnated and not changed to meet the challenges of today’s society.
Aubry, 58, is a party traditionalist, best known for having some up with the plan to install a 35-hour working week in France when the Socialists were in power in the mid-1990s. She has the backing of the conservative members of the Socialist structure.
The National Council is expected to back Aubry, but this could completely split the Socialist Party, which did not massively take part in last Thursday’s vote for Party Secretary.