THE FRENCH socialist party's attempts to designate a new first secretary have descended into acrimony and confusion, with Martine Aubry and Ségolène Royal disputing the results of the election in which nearly 140,000 party members voted on Friday.
Just before 6am on Saturday, results announced at party headquarters showed that Ms Aubry, the mayor of Lille, won by 42 votes, or .04 per cent. She claimed victory.
But Ms Royal, who lost the presidential election last year, vowed: "I'm not going to take this."
By yesterday both sides were threatening to sue. Manuel Valls, one of Royal's top aides, announced that a lawsuit would be filed for fraud against the socialist federation in Lille, whereupon the head of the Lille federation threatened to sue Mr Valls for defamation.
The commentator Claude Askolovitch said the party's initials, PS, should stand for Parti Suicidaire (suicidal party). Le Mondenewspaper called it "a democratic shipwreck" and a spokeswoman for the right-wing UMP spoke of "a battle of egos in a desert of ideas". The Royal camp will use "all means, political, legal and judiciary, to contest the victory" of Ms Aubry, Mr Valls said. It was Mr Valls who first spoke of "trickery" while the votes were being counted overnight Friday. "I say it in the most firm and solemn way. We will not let victory be stolen from us," he added.
"I don't think that dragging the internal life of the socialist party into the courts is the solution," said Daniel Vaillant, the former socialist interior minister who oversaw the count at party headquarters.
The votes are to be re-counted today, even as Ms Royal files an official appeal with the party's outgoing leader, Francois Hollande, and the socialists' electoral commission to demand that the election be repeated.
Ms Royal's camp claim 200 votes were fraudulently credited to Ms Aubry in Lille, and that 20 of her votes in New Caledonia were not counted.
An error recognised by the Moselle federation mistakenly gave 12 votes to Ms Aubry which should have gone to Royal. Once this correction is made, only 18 votes separate the two women.
Mr Hollande lived with Ms Royal for 25 years but the couple separated last year. His leadership of the party over the past 11 years is blamed for its parlous condition, and he is in a difficult position arbitrating between Ms Royal and Ms Aubry.
"One imagines Ségolène," wrote the columnist Michèle Stouvenot in yesterday's Journal du Dimanche. "'Allô, Francois? May I remind you that you're the father of my children?' And Martine: 'Allô, Francois? May I remind you that I'm supported by (the former socialist leader and prime minister) Lionel Jospin?'"
Socialist party members have voted three times in two weeks. In the first poll, they put Ms Royal's programme in the lead, with 29 per cent of votes cast. After a disastrous party congress in Reims on November 14th-16th, Ms Royal, Ms Aubry and Benoit Hamon, a young MEP representing the left of the party, competed in the first round of the election last Thursday. Mr Hamon came in third and immediately endorsed Mr Aubry for the second round on Friday.
Mr Hollande rejected Ms Royal's demand for a fourth poll, saying: "There is no sense in re-voting. Not tomorrow, nor the day after."
Ms Royal called for "calm and serenity" on the main television news programme on Saturday. It was "strange for [Aubry] to self-proclaim herself elected when there are still a certain number of votes being looked into," Ms Royal said. "Martine Aubry rushed because she knows the results are in the process of being reversed. The definitive decision won't be taken (by the party council) until Tuesday." Ms Royal said there was no question of her leaving the party to found her own movement. "Every time they thought I was dead I've come back, and I am certain of winning tomorrow," she said.
Ms Aubry earlier delivered a victory speech at the National Assembly. "As soon as our institutions will have validated the results . . . I want to tell everyone, quite simply, that I will be first secretary for all socialist party members," she said. "The question is no longer who won or lost. We will all lose if we're not capable of drawing together."
Ms Aubry said party leaders owe members a "renewal" and "renaissance". She said she "understood the disappointment of Ségolène Royal, which was all the more intense because the results were very close".
The battle between Ms Aubry and Ms Royal is about personalities, not ideology. Both claim to be pro-Europe reformers who want to increase the role of the state and redistribute wealth within France. Ms Aubry uses more traditional socialist rhetoric and rejects any possibility of working with the centrist MoDem party.
Ms Royal, who is often compared to a television evangelist, wants the party to be more flexible in forming alliances.
BIOGRAPHIES
MARTINE AUBRY appears likely to take over the leadership of the Socialist Party from François Hollande, who has run the party for the past 11 years.
In results announced early on Saturday, Ms Aubry (58) won 50.02 per cent of the 137,116 votes cast by party members on Friday. Her victory must be endorsed by a meeting of the party's national council tomorrow.
Ms Aubry is the daughter of the former president of the European Commission, Jacques Delors.
She joined the Socialist Party in 1974. From 1997 until 1991, Ms Aubry was one of the most influential members of Lionel Jospin's cabinet. As minister for employment and social affairs, she created 700,000 "youth jobs" that brought France's unemployment rate down and initiated the law on the 35-hour working week which bears her name.
A doctrinaire socialist, she has been mayor of Lille since 2001, but lost her seat in the National Assembly in 2002.
Ségolène Royal (left) gained international fame and the disdain of her rivals in the Socialist Party when she challenged Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidency in 2007. She is determined to stand for the presidency again in 2012 and saw the party leadership as a springboard.
Her tenacity was forged by an unhappy childhood as one of eight children of an authoritarian army colonel. He did not believe in educating girls, but Royal persevered, graduating from the prestigious École Nationale d'Administration (ENA).
Ms Royal (55) met François Hollande at ENA. The couple had four children and stayed together for more than 25 years, splitting up shortly after the presidential election. Mr Hollande supported the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë - not Ms Royal - in the contest for the party leadership.
Ms Royal portrays herself as a moderniser. Past attempts to ally herself with the centre-right MoDem party convinced many socialists she was not sufficiently left-wing.