presidential dilemma

The French election system is horrible, unfair and absolutely one-hundred-percent frustrating. Voting in the majority, two-round system as it has developped has more to do with betting, calculating and hoping than expressing political convictions. Betting on which candidate other voters will massively vote for, calculating which two candidates are thus likely to make it to the second round, and hoping that your calculations are right.

Over the past weeks and months, I had come to the conclusion that considering the present candidate constellation, and the experience made with the 2002 presidential elections, I had to vote for Royal. 2002 was the first time I was allowed to vote. I voted green - which as a choice in itself I'd rather not judge at present - and contributed to Jospin's weakening so that I HAD to vote right wing in the second round. HAD to vote right wing for my first presidential elections. I remember waking up all sweaty after a nightmare in which Le Pen had won the elections. (The good side-effect of this was the sllllowww beginning of my politisation). If this time, once again, no social-liberal-democrat candidate (debatably a lesser evil) made it to the second round, and if the choice then were between one-eyed-evil and two-eyed-evil, I would be totally and absolutely incapable of voting. So to avoid this type of second round, I had accepted that I had to vote Royal.

The problem is, I dislike being blackmailed and voting AGAINST what I don't want rather than FOR what I want. I dislike being put in a position where I'm told there is no alternative. So it is that I've started looking more into the whole situation. I've looked at what the candidates say, I've looked at their websites, I've downloaded programmes which I haven't started reading, and I've started asking other people what they were thinking of voting. The candidate that has a vision that most resembles my ideal is little Olivier Besancenot of the LCR. He is an excellent talker and debater, and has the rare ability to explain in simple terms what the cause of socio-economic problems are. He is probably the most powerful orator when it comes to countering both racist and neo-liberal ideologies. This is one of my favourite interventions of his, debating with businessman Charles Beigbeder.

The main obstacles I have for voting for the LCR are
1) that obviously, left-wing vote is once again going to be scattered and thus the ominous Evil 1 vs. Evil 2 second round would be unavoidable.
2) that it's unclear what the meaning, significance and purpose of an idealistic vote is.

The aspects to keep in mind when considering these two obstacles are
- Would having more moderate Royal or even Bayrou as president actually be in any way better than the Big Evils? And, connected to this,
- What would the socialist party learn from an election process in which voters gather on one candidate out of fear, not expressing the way in which they really want left wing politics to go?

I'm surprised that so many people have started considering voting for Bayrou - people I've talked to. Well, mainly two people. I need to read his programme, but instinctively I would say that the difference to the socialist party programme is minimal, seeing as the socialist party is already very centre. So why go for him? I would expect that Royal has the woman bonus for her, that people would be curious and excited by the novelty of trying to have a woman president.

In any case, I'm thinking. There's more to it, but I'm going to make cheese scones.