New elections for Perpignan

NEW municipal elections must be held in Perpignan after the Conseil d’Etat ruled that last year’s were invalid after a polling station officer was found with votes stuffed into his socks.

Last March UMP member Jean-Paul Alduy, who is also senator for the Pyrénées Orientales, won the municipal elections by 574 votes out of a total 41,983 cast.

There was a scandal when the head of one Perpignan’s 66 polling booths was found to have his pockets and socks stuffed with voting slips.

The man was a brother of one of Mr Alduy’s prospective town council colleagues (would-be mayors head a “list” of people who may join them as town councillors).

In October last year the Tribunal Administratif de Montpellier ruled the incident invalidated the election but Mr Alduy appealed to the Conseil d’Etat . This top administrative body has now backed the ruling.

The prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales said the town council would shortly be disbanded and he will put in place a temporary team pending new elections.

It is not certain if Mr Alduy will stand again. He said: “It’s a decision that has to be taken with a cool head,” adding he would “do everything” to stop his “infernal” Socialist rivals winning both the department and mairie.

Interior Minister Alain Marleix said he was “astonished” at the decision, which he thought would “cause a risk of innumerable contested elections in the future.”

“They have generalised to the scale of the town an incident that just happened in one polling booth,” he added.

However the Conseil d’Etat said that due to the small margin by which Mr Alduy won it was not certain that his list would have been successful in the absence of fraud.

The Socialist Party hailed the decision “a victory for democracy.”

STORY:Vote socks fraud election anulled
PHOTO: AFP/Raymon Roig