Is there any reason to panic before the second round of the French presidential elections?

If we wanted to describe in one word the atmosphere in the pro-European and Euro-Atlantic political milieu after the first round of the presidential elections in France (or rather, a week or two before them), that word would be - panic. Everyone is afraid of the consequences for the European Union and the unity of the North Atlantic Alliance that another defeat of democratic political options in the European elections would have. The victory of Viktor Orbán, who only tactically moved away from the alliance with Vladimir Putin and his totalitarian regime, was an unpleasant bitter pill for those who have the concept of "more Europe" at heart, but it is still an embarrassment that happened outside the main backbone of European integration.

However, France, together with Germany, forms the "locomotive" of the Union, and the victory of the Europhobic, pro-Putin political option, and the challenger of the current president Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, we can safely call Mrs. La Putin, would be a very dangerous blow for the Union and a great triumph for now mostly the lonely Putin. Putin may have toasted Orban and that victory may have given him a little hope in the desperate conditions he has found himself in with his ferocious aggression against Ukraine, but also with his undisguised ambition to destroy the European Union and dominate Europe "from Lisbon to Vladivostok", but the reversal in France would be the reason for the triumph and the preparation of new blows to the Union, which he despises so much.

Orban's victory

Everyone who understands political dynamics and its legalities had to count on Orban's victory, because the way of building the coalition, which opposed him, simply did not guarantee basic stability. Citizens expect stability and predictability from those they trust and give legitimacy to rule, and security is not a fundamental political value only in conditions of global instability, such as those created by Putin's aggression against Ukraine, but also by his attempt to destroy the international security order.

Whatever the democratic deficits of Orbán's rule, he is a good manager who ensured a high and stable standard for the Hungarian middle class, after the crisis into which it was pushed by the former socialist administration of Ferenc Gyurcsány. The victory of Aleksandar Vučić and the Serbian Progressive Party, which has the position of the dominant political party in the parliamentary arena in Serbia, was not an election surprise either.

However, the panic that has already been discussed in several election cycles in France, where representatives of democratic values ​​are afraid of the strengthening of the anti-democratic right-wing radical political option, first led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, and now by his daughter Marine, is the result of a misunderstanding of political processes and ignorance of the legality of the election model there. The French two-circuit majority electoral system is the work of French constitutional lawyers and political scientists, and was designed as a response to the instability that marked the French IV. republic.

Voting with heart and mind

Even twenty years ago, in May 2002, "analysts" predicted that the father of today's Macron's challenger could triumph in the presidential elections, after he trailed the then president Jacques Chirac by about 2%, i.e. about 800 thousand, in the first round. votes. The French two-round system, however, allows the voter to "vote with his heart" in the first round, that is, to vote for the candidate who is really his "first choice", and in the second round to "vote with his mind" and to give his vote to whoever can win, and which one is closest to his choice.

The situation in that second election round, in which Chirac "beat" old Le Pen, was: 82% versus 18% of the vote, or in absolute numbers: about 25 million versus 5 million votes.

Macron's victory over Marine Le Pen five years ago was less convincing, but even then the victory of the democratic option over the authoritarian populist was more than convincing: 66:33%, or 20 out of 10 million votes. The situation is exactly the same after every parliamentary and local election. First, there is speculation about the great results of the National Front, and then in the second round, that party remains on the margins of parliament and without executive power in all departments and important cities and municipalities.

The French electoral model works very efficiently, represents a barrier against the penetration of radicals into the political arena, and ensures rational political representation and the stability of the executive power. It is paradoxical that Marine Le Pen, based on her influence in French representative bodies, from local to national, would not have nearly such political influence if there was no European Parliament. Namely, the European Parliament is elected by a proportional system, with a relatively low, 5 percent electoral threshold, and the entire member state is one electoral unit. Representation in the European Parliament for the National Front and Marine Le Pen ensures, on the one hand, a political platform and, on the other, a legal source of funding (aside from the fact that Le Pen is known for embezzling European funds, as she financed her party's activities at the national level from funds of the European Parliament and thus attracted a European financial investigation).

Shaping the parliamentary arena

Of course, illegal, black, financing by Putin's totalitarian regime is far more important for Le Pen than the gray, semi-legal, at the expense of European funds, but the paradox is that the European Parliament acquires both legitimate political space and financial funds for a party that in its own country it would not have any influence if it did not receive space and finance from the European level. After all, the same thing happened with Nigel Farage and his Brexit and UKIP parties, which could never cross the electoral threshold for the British Parliament (relative majority system, known as "first past the post"), so until he made it to the European, he had no visibility in Britain, and from the European Parliament he had a key influence on Britain's withdrawal from the EU.

The electoral system strongly influences the way the parliamentary arena is shaped, and often has a decisive effect on the fate of the democratic order. According to many political scientists, it was the electoral system that dealt the death blow to the Weimar Republic. In the period between the two wars, Germany applied a "pure" proportional system, without an electoral threshold, and the entire country was one electoral unit. This system led to great fragmentation, and under these conditions in 1933, Hitler's NSDAP, with around 33% of the vote, could impose itself as the leading parliamentary party and form a ruling coalition.

The deficit of liberal democracies in protection against authoritarianism and totalitarianism became after the Second World War an important topic of political philosophy, constitutional law and political science, and regulating the constitutional role of political parties and protection against anti-democratic abuses of party mechanisms was the most important innovation of constitutional law in that period.

The French Fifth Republic has a functional electoral system, and French citizens - voters have a high political culture, which enables them to understand the effect of the electoral system according to which they vote. The electoral model enables them to mobilize in defense of democratic values, and this mobilization has already taken place in several cycles against father Le Pen and his daughter.

In such conditions, it is not dangerous that the critical 33% of votes that Hitler gathered to break the Weimar Republic can be attached to the anti-democratic political option. Five years ago, Marine Le Pen gathered so much, but the voters of the democratic options, the options of the constitutional arch, gathered then around Macron. Mobilization is currently needed by France, but panic is harmful. It could lead to the wrong strategy, the strategy of a radical turn of the centrist Macron to the left. It is not possible to win elections with social demagoguery, but only with socially sensitive rhetoric, based on responsibility, that is, with a liberal-democratic social strategy, which can be acceptable to socialist voters, conservative voters, and liberal voters.

(Al Jazeera)