The battle to succeed former president Nicolas Sarkozy at the helm of France’s main opposition party, the UMP, descended into confusion on Monday with both candidates claiming victory amid mutual allegations of ballot rigging.
Jean-Francois Cope, the party’s populist secretary-general, made an unequivocal claim that he had won, while former prime minister Francois Fillon said he believed he had edged what was an acrimonious contest but would wait “serenely” for a definitive announcement from the electoral commission which oversaw the poll.
“The French people are watching us. We do not have the right to announce the result before those in charge of the vote,” said Fillon in a swipe at Cope, who had minutes earlier declared himself the victor.
Cope said: “The activists of the UMP have accorded me a majority of their votes and therefore have elected me as the president of the party.”
Aides to Cope said he was 1,000 votes ahead of his rival in a vote in which more than half of the UMP’s 300,000 voters had cast their ballots. Fillon said he was 224 votes ahead pending a definitive conclusion to the count.
The vote came six months after Sarkozy’s presidential election defeat to Socialist Francois Hollande, who is now battling a slump in his popularity ratings.
Whoever finally emerges as the new UMP leader will be taking over a party on the up with the Socialist government struggling in the opinion polls and with little sign of the economic gloom engulfing the country abating in the near future.