PARIS: A proposal by France’s contested opposition leader to hold fresh polls in 2014 after a shambolic vote for the party’s leadership touched off a fresh round of bickering Sunday despite warnings from Nicolas Sarkozy.
The former president emerged from his election defeat to issue the ultimatum to Jean-Francois Cope — the twice-declared winner of last month’s UMP vote — and his former prime minister, Francois Fillon.
If the two men do not come to an agreement on a fresh vote by Tuesday, “I will say that you both are disqualified to lead,” sources close to Sarkozy quoted him as saying.
“All this has gone on for too long,” he said of the worst crisis in the French right in half a century.
Sarkozy’s entourage said he was “infuriated” by the deadlock after the November 18 UMP election.
Fillon’s supporters have formed a breakaway parliamentary faction in the party, a decade-old coalition of Gaullist conservatives, centrists, Christian democrats and liberals.
Cope, the declared winner of the leadership vote who has refused calls for a new election, on Sunday proposed to hold a fresh election in 2014 — after municipal polls but a year before the end of his term.
“Nobody can argue that I did not display an open mind… My door is still open, my hand is still extended,” Cope said in the eastern city of Nancy, stressing that he would not make further proposals.
But Fillon was quick to reject the proposal as “unacceptable”, dashing hopes of a rapid breakthrough.
“The fresh vote must take place as soon as possible, be organised in a fair and transparent manner,” he said.
Fillon had said earlier that his team was ready to meet with Cope’s on Monday.
Sarkozy has no official post in the UMP after his defeat in the May presidential election to Socialist Francois Hollande. But he is anxious to keep the UMP together in case he decides to make a comeback bid for the presidency in 2017.
Sarkozy is currently the only unifying voice who can salvage the party and wields influence over both Cope and Fillon.
The UMP, the political heir to the movement founded by Charles de Gaulle after World War II, has been on the verge of collapse over the dispute, which saw the leadership vote tarnished by accusations of vote-rigging.
Fillon has formed a new parliamentary wing to break away from the UMP, depriving the party of credibility and crucial public funding.
A party appeals commission last Monday confirmed Cope’s win in the leadership vote, raising his margin of victory from 98 votes to nearly 1,000 following an examination of complaints over alleged irregularities.
Fillon’s Rally for the UMP (R-UMP) has attracted at least 72 of the UMP’s 194 members and associate members in the National Assembly — costing the party some of the 42,000 euros ($ 54,000) per member it receives in public funds every year.
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