France's Macron dissolves parliament, calls new elections
France's Macron dissolves parliament, calls new elections
French President Emmanuel Macron has dissolved the lower house of parliament and announced fresh elections after his party's poor performance in the EU elections.
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Can somebody ELI5? I'm not familiar with Frances politics. Why would Macron do this?
Macron’s party lost resoundingly. Le Pen said that this means that Macron’s party no longer has the legitimacy to run the country. Macron is probably trying to minimise his losses by calling elections, instead of having feelings of unhappiness bottle up even further
So, either he will prove Le Pen wrong and "restore" legitimacy, or he will lose everything before the actual time comes, am I correct? Seems like a reeeally bold move, especially if the other option is an alleged agent of Moscow
France has a slightly odd election system, where the vote for president is a free-for-all initially, and then the top two candidates face off.
He's currently the second largest party, so he's banking on being the contender against Le Pen for president, hoping that the left, center and moderate right help him win again (because Le Pen would be worse than he'd be).
It's not a terrible strategy, but it is a little risky.
Better to move quickly when risks are high and outcomes uncertain.
Odd comparing to what? Two rounds is the way to ensure the president has a majority: first you vote for who you want, second time you veto. This is how you elect presidents in countries like France, Brazil, Romania, Portugal...it makes sense :)
PS: Macron did not resign, these are not presidential elections, this is a legislative election only.
The top two candidates may be quite polarising for example, whereas a 3rd candidate might be acceptable to all. Or there could be a large group of quite mediocre candidates.
It's not bad way per sé, but it's basically a band-aid around FPTP, instead of fixing the problem properly.
Actually you can never vote for what you want, unless it has a decent chance to make it to the second turn. The condorcet method would allow it.
My reading would be more like he doesn't see it getting any better with time before the next election, if he leaves the parliament to run to term he'll definitely lose, if he calls the vote now it minimises the bleeding and there's a chance they'll get another few years in power and maybe it will start coming back their direction.