SOCIALIST PARTY ENDS MONTH-LONG DECISON PROCESS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 008069 SIPDIS DEPT ALSO FOR EUR/WE, DRL/IL, INR/EUC, EUR/ERA, EUR/PPD, AND EB DEPT OF COMMERCE FOR ITA DEPT OF LABOR FOR ILAB E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV ELAB EU FR PINR SOCI ECON SUBJECT: SOCIALIST PARTY ENDS MONTH-LONG DECISON PROCESS UNITED AND RE-ORGANIZED -- READY TO TAKE ON INTERNAL BATTLE FOR ITS 2007 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION REF: A. EMBASSY PARIS DAILY REPORTS FOR NOVEMBER 9 ¶B. 10 ¶C. 14 ¶D. 17 ¶E. 18 ¶F. 21 ¶G. 25 ¶H. AND 28 SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. France's Socialist Party (PS) -- in a convoluted, fiercely contested, but genuinely democratic process throughout November -- agreed on a document setting out the party's policy direction and renewed the membership of its governing institutions. It also created a "Presidential Commission" to draft a detailed party platform for the 2007 presidential election and organize the competition for the party's presidential nomination to be decided by the vote of party members one year from now. Through the month-long process just ended, the leadership of the party, and its 127,000 members, found a way to hold together despite barely containable contending ambitions and factional differences. They did so in the conviction that, without unity, the PS would have little chance of winning the 2007 presidential election, now only 16 months away. This unity seems more than a temporary agreement to put on a united front; party members and party leaders across the board seem to have come to the conclusion that uncontrolled dissension within the PS risks marginalizing the party, undermining its chances of alternating in power with the center-right. END SUMMARY. Centerpiece of Month-Long Decision Process -------------- ¶2. The centerpiece of Socialist Party's (PS's) month-long, organizational decision process was the party congress in the city of Le Mans over the week-end of November 18 - 20. National Secretary Francois Hollande and party number two Francois Rebsamen succeeded in brokering a text that brought aboard the party's two principal minority factions. One of these factions (about 20 percent of party members) consists of supporters of former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and his bid for the party's presidential nomination; these party members, like Fabius, also opposed the proposed EU Constitution last Spring. The other faction (about 25 percent of party members) consists of supporters of the reform agenda of the New Socialist Party (NPS),and of no particular presidential candidate. The majority faction (about 55 percent of party members) supports party leader Francois Hollande and the party establishment (in the establishment faction there are over a half-dozen would-be presidential candidates, most notably, former Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn). Party by-laws call for a party congress every three years; this is the first party congress since 1990 that has ended in across-the-board agreement by all party factions on a single policy sttatement -- or, in PS-speak, "political orientation" or "motion." Seventy-Fourth Socialist Party Congress -------------- ¶3. Over the week-end of November 18 - 20, about 3000 participants, observers, journalists, and ordinary PS militants gathered for the PS's 74th Party Congress -- and the final installment of the party's year-long celebration of its 100th birthday. (Note: The party was founded in 1905 -- with about 35,000 members -- as the French Section of the Workers International (SFIO). End Note.) The party congress was held in the city of Le Mans, in western France, site of the famed 24-hour automotive endurance race. The well-worn joke among congress attendees was that listening to three full days of party speakers was more grueling than anything that might take place on the race-track right next to the site of the congress. Preparing for the Congress -------------- ¶4. On November 9, about 80 percent of the party's current 127,000 members voted in the party's 3,500 "sections" for one of five competing "motions" (see ref for November 9). The results of this vote, through a complex proportional system and further elections in the party's 102 departmental "federations" (of "sections") determined the 614 delegates to the party congress in Le Mans. Business of the Congress -------------- ¶5. These delegates, at the congress, on November 20, voted into office 204 members of the party's National Council (the party's "parliament"); the 102 heads of the party's federations are automatically members of the council, for a total of 306 council members. For the first time the party imposed its gender parity policy on itself; the council -- at least the 204 members elected by congress -- is made up of equal numbers of men and women. On the evening of November 19, faction leaders and key supporters met late into the night in a "commission of synthesis" to arrive at an agreed text for party policy direction -- the "synthesized motion" in the PS parlance. Once they had agreed to agree, a key part of the deliberations of this caucus was the factional composition of the list of National Council members to be submitted to the vote of the congress delegates the following morning. The net result is a "unified" "party parliament," with each faction represented commensurately with its showing in the vote by party members on November 9. Post-Congress Decisions -------------- ¶6. In the week following the congress, PS party members again voted, on November 23, for the party's First Secretary, and new federation and section secretaries. (Comment: The PS's terminology is very revealing of its culture; for example, the party bosses are called "secretaries" which in French, unlike in current American usage, strongly connotes a trusted but subordinate status -- those charged with faithfully recording and executing the decisions of others, in this case, the party members. End Comment.) Among the results of the unity reached at the Le Mans Congress is that Francois Hollande was unopposed in his bid to remain party First Secretary. On November 25 the National Council elected 54 members of the party's National Bureau (the party's "executive branch"); 18 additional National Bureau members were selected by the federation secretaries from among themselves. 12-Member "Presidential Commission" -------------- ¶7. On November 27, Hollande then designated -- after long and arduous political horse-trading with all the party's barons -- the members of the party's new 43-member, National Secretariat, its "inner cabinet." Also on November 27, SIPDIS Hollande and the party announced the creation of an unprecedented, 12-member "Presidential Commission" which is to prepare a detailed party platform for 2007. (The literal translation of this commission's title is "The Commission on the Party's Project for 2007.") This commission consists of three leaders drawn from the NPS, Fabius plus two chief lieutenants, and six establishment heavyweights (not counting Hollande and Rebsamen who are attached to it as a sort of commission secretariat). This group's ostensible mission is to draft a detailed platform for the party by May 2006. In fact, it will be overseeing the competition for the party's presidential nomination -- trying to prevent the rivalries among party leaders from undermining the party's -- currently quite low -- credibility with the public at large. The document agreed to by all factions at the party congress establishes that the party's 2007 presidential nominee will be selected by vote of the party members in November 2006. Comment: Hollande's Triumph -------------- ¶8. Playing on his strength, popularity among rank-and-file party members -- who see him as a genuinely committed guarantor of decision processes that ultimately rest on their votes -- Hollande (and Rebsamen) have managed to pull the party into one tent. This maximizes the probability of the party emerging with one single candidate for the 2007 presidential election, now only 16 months away. The need to project to the French public that the center-left PS is a credible contender for normally alternating in power with the center-right (as in other major European democracies) drove the strategy of Hollande and Rebsamen. All in the party are well aware that unity is a necessary, if not necessarily sufficient, precondition for victory in 2007. Fabius: the Other Big Winner -------------- ¶9. In order to achieve party unity, Hollande and the party establishment accepted the return to the fold of black sheep Fabius, who had broken with the democratically established party position by advocating 'no' to the proposed EU constitutional treaty. Resentment against Fabius -- for his allegedly cynical and opportunistic flaunting of party discipline -- still runs very strong among many party members. With his re-acceptance into the party fold at Le Mans and his membership in the Presidential Commission, Fabius can now continue his quest for the party's presidential nomination with the credibility of a newly respectable, party member in good standing. Fabius has the support of 20 percent of party members; the members of the NPS faction of the party are as likely to sympathize with Fabius' more "traditional leftist" stances as with the more "social democratic" stances of his establishment rivals, such as Strauss-Kahn. Among many party loyalists however, the contempt for Fabius remains palpable; from conversations on the margins of the party congress in Le Mans, it is clear that many of these party mainstreamers would drop their party activism, if not membership, should Fabius win the nomination. A Crowded Field -------------- ¶10. The "unified" PS now turns its attention to what promises to be twelve months of internal political trench-fighting for the 2007 nomination. Hollande and Rebsamen believe that if the party manages this conflict in a transparent and democratic way, that will stand to the party's credit in the estimation of the electorate come April ¶2007. Even within the party establishment, this will not be easy, given the number of heavyweight contenders. The dissident Fabius and mainstreamer Strauss-Kahn are currently the front-runners for the nomination. Should either falter, however, a range of others -- former Culture Minister Jack Lang, President of the Poitou-Charentes Region Segolene Royale, Mayor of Lille Martine Aubry, former Justice Minister Elizabeth Guigou, Paris Mayor Bernard Delanoe, Former Health Minister Bernard Koucher (who declared his interest last week),Hollande himself or former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin -- would certainly be tempted to break out to head the pack. A Confusing, Complex, and Democratic Process -------------- ¶11. PS party members are proud to characterize their organization's culture as one of "debate and democracy." The month-long process that just ended with a unified party exhibited all the strengths and weaknesses of the PS's way of doing things. All decisions were taken or ratified by genuinely democratic vote of the party members or their duly elected representatives -- all in a long-established, highly complex system rife with factional infighting, fierce intellectual disagreements, intriguing to shape electors' choices, and competition to outmaneuver rivals. A similar process, equally confusing, complex and democratic, should, a year from now, end with the designation of a single candidate to represent the PS in the 2007 presidential election. Goal is Normally Alternating in Power -------------- ¶12. Hollande and Rebsamen believe that a unified party, that remains unified behind a single candidate in 2007, is absolutely essential if the PS is to remain the center of gravity of the center-left, in what should be the regular alternation in power between center-left and center-right that is the well-established norm in developed democracies. So far, they have masterfully managed to maintain the unity of a nearly unmanageably divided party. In so doing, they have fulfilled a necessary precondition for victory in 2007, although it is not clear that even this will last. Even if it does last, it is not at all clear that it will be sufficient. END COMMENT. Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm Stapleton