Elections

This guy is certainly not standing!

The elections are coming up. Not the national one, not the presidential one, no, this time we will have to vote for the town council. There are no familiar parties taking part here such as Labour, Tories or LibDems, no, not even Screaming Lord Such is running for local councillor. I can only compare these elections with the local ones in the Netherlands, and the French certainly know how to make something simple quite complicated, at least in my eyes. How it works? I have not the foggiest, but I hope to find out in the coming weeks!
Everything started off by registering in the voting register. Once registered, on may, even as a foreigner, vote for the town council. We have found out in the meantime that there are different rules for the elections, depending on the size of the commune. Our commune has 503 inhabitants, hence we follow the rules for the category less than 1000 inhabitants.
The mayor still in function has drawn up a list of 15 candidates, of which he is the head, hence the mayor to be. This list is completely non-political, if that is possible at all. In Cormatin we will not see a struggle between ultra left-wingers or ultra right-wingers. There are quite a few communes with only one list, and this list is often incomplete as well. One could ask oneself what on earth is the purpose of an election with only one incomplete list. But that seems to be a non-relevant question. Even though there are 15 candidates, it is quite well possible that one cannot identify with one or more of those. The voter is allowed to cross off names, and even add different ones.

(Part of the ruling clique

The new names however will have to be chosen from those who made themselves available, although they did not want to be on any list. Their names are displayed on a piece of paper in the voting booth. It appears to be possible, someone explained to me (without me understanding one word of it however) that the complete list does not get a majority of 50% + one vote, in which case there will be a different voting round. With two lists I can however more or less understand this majority principle. And fortunately Cormatin has produced a second list, although with only 11 names and without leader, but anyway….

The list without head

After having verified for the umpteenth time that we are properly registered (where we were allowed to look at this important piece of paper), we are now waiting for the propaganda of the two fighting factions. The “Opposition party” uses the words transparency and involvement a lot. Of the “Ruling party” however we know most candidates personally, and even without knowing the “political programs” our choice will most likely be quite simple. But who knows: one week before the elections the presses start rolling and the Agitprop will be distributed. So there is still time for change!

In some villages windmills are a hot item.

You can find out whether there are any great changes in Cormatin or not during a stay in La Tuilerie de Chazelle.