Something definitely has to change following repeated losses in national elections. Their recent success has been limited to being a reaction against the right but rarely have they produced exciting new ideas. The left remains splintered and the leadership continues to be a closed group that somehow always produces the same candidates with the same backgrounds. Even the right wing Sarkozy managed to be the first to create a multi-cultural cabinet rather than the same old group of white men who graduated from l'ENA. (He has since backed off from that in favor of same old, same old.)
The change would remove the party elite/insiders from complete control of new candidates and instead, create a primary system much like we have in the US where regular voters have a say. The party machine will still remain powerful but new candidates could stand a better chance of emerging. Will the old guard give up their power and influence to control choices? Maybe they are finally ready. Stay tuned.
An American-style primary election open to all French voters will be organised by the Parti Socialiste (PS), the main opposition party, to pick the man or woman who will challenge President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012.
The principle of an "open primary" was embraced yesterday by the socialist leader, Martine Aubry, in an attempt to bind together a party which has looked to be on the point of disintegration in recent months.
"To reinvent democracy we must make profound changes to the habits and political rules of our own party," she wrote in Le Monde newspaper.
Several poisonous issues in her party remain unresolved, however, and will enliven – or embitter – public and private debate at the PS annual congress, or "summer university", which starts today in at La Rochelle.
