French Election 2007 - Buzzwise

This is my second visit to France 24 as a “political” blogger in this election for the 2007 French president and I take my hat off for the innovative online presence of France 24 during these two election nights. Blending TV feeds and the continuous views of invited bloggers have created a media experience I know many have valued.  France 24 has successfully managed to mix traditional TV coverage of an election with new media capturing opinions from the individual blogger. Many thanks.

Sarkozy is the next president of France. He won the first round and the second round with good margins. French voters have given him a clear mandate to rule and deliver on his promises, but to do that he still needs to jump a few hurdles, the first and obvious being the parliamentary election in June. French voters could well give the socialist party, or the left, a majority in Parliament making it difficult for him to maneuver. Sarkozy needs to use his first months as president to convince France, and the left side in French politics in particular, that he is president not only for the 53 percent or so that voted for him. At the same time he needs to address some of the most pressing issues for France and act on them immediately, the most important being the economy and the high unemployment. This will not however be an easy ride. Cutting public costs are bound to hurt and create uproar with the unions. It would be wrong to think however that Royal could have done things much different had she been elected president. The French deficit is so big that any French President would have had the need to address this issue immediately and with great attention. The issue of the public debt has also been at the attention of the online community. Measured against the online buzz it has been the third most focused political issues in the run up to the election, after security and “fiscalite”.

My project in connection with the French election has been to monitor the online buzz. The result from the first round was fairly in line with the online buzz, and the big question in the run up to the second round was, not surprisingly, if the accuracy of the technology would match that of the first round. On the night of the final election the online buzz, measured yesterday, puts Sarkozy (51,5) ahead of Royal (48,5), but not with the same margin as the latest polls have indicated. What I have noticed the last two weeks is that Sarkozy and Royal both have moved towards the 50 percent mark, leaving a gap of only 2 percent if favor of Sarkozy. Trying to come up with an explanation I have come to believe that in the last two weeks, when there are only 2 candidates, the online attention goes equally to both candidates. Hence, when measuring the online buzz in this period, figures appear to divide almost equally between the two. I asked on the day following the televised debate why the online buzz on Royal made a dramatic jump, and I have come to conclude that it boils down to the speculations surrounding her performance and if she would manage to turn around what seemed to be the inevitable victory of Sarkozy. As commentators and polls have pointed to she does not appear to have managed - the official results being only 1 hour away.

18:25

I have again returned to France 24 to blog live from their studio. The result from the exit poll will be available at 19.00, but French law prohibits the publishing of these results before 20.00. France 24 will be fined if any of us should decide or attempt to make the result of the exit poll available.

We are many more bloggers here this time around. France 24 has invited bloggers from around the world; Morocco, USA, Norway, Holland, Germany and France, and we are sitting around round tables in a fairly large room on the ground floor.

I will return to the televised debate between the two candidates tonight, but it is already interesting to note that Royal climbed and passed Sarkozy measured against the online buzz on the day of the debate. From the 1 to the 2 May 2007 Royal surpassed Sarkozy with as much as 80.000 hits and leads the buzz race on MSN 3 days before the second round of elections. It appears from the reading of a selection of these articles that online media was attentive in the wake of the televised debate and the prospect of Madame Royal turning the tide by convincing the undecided, a majority of whom voted for Bayrou in the first round. Historically, the televised debate between the two candidates running for the presidency has made little or no difference on the final result - except on two occasions. And the question many of us asked yesterday was if Royal would manage to create another magical moment in the debate that would turn the sentiment in her favor. And this might indeed be the biggest factor explaining the sudden climb, but it could also be, as I found against the result of the first round, an early indication that Royal is indeed about to close the gap. As we all know the result of the first election was a confident vote for Sarkozy by a 5 percent margin. Royal did however manage to convince a much higher number of voters than the polls indicated (in the last 3 weeks before the elections), with a result that was close to the online buzz trend over the same period.

Against this background I am eagerly waiting for the result of the measurement of online buzz this evening.

Since the Sunday night election i have followed the reaction to the result and the prediction of the outcome of the second round in French and international newspapers and in the TV media. It should not come as a surprise that a majority predicts Sarkozy to be the next French president. This has as much to do with his policy proposition as it has to do with the alternative. Royal did not manage to run a campaign and present a credible alternative on behalf of the socialist party or in broader terms the left in French politics.

From this starting point in front of the second round she faced an uphill battle where 1) She must change the public image of her capability 2) Present a very structured and clear socialist alternative to the policy of the right (avoid Sarkozy bashing) 3) within this framework convince a very large number of centrist voters that she is the better alternative.

Already at the outset she is facing a difficult task looking at the voter’s that are populating the centre stage of French politics as it came out of the first round: A large majority of those voting for Bayrou are biased to vote for Sarkozy and given the 18 percent vote this will be a clear uphill battle.

How this will play out at the end of the day will not be known before the exit polls are broadcasted on the evening on 6 May. However, the online buzz is there to be analyzed and based on the results it has provided us with in the past it could still provide us a with hint as to the final result.

At the moment, the buzz trend is clearly in favor of Sarkozy, regardless of source. The graph below, which is drawn from MSN, shows a distinct raise in buzz for Sarkozy as compared to Royal since the day of the election.

This is what it looks like from the studio where we are currently blogging. For more pictures visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/france24elections/468671680/

What will the result from the first round mean for the result of the second? Based on the current result and what we know about French elections in the past this is indeed a difficult exercise at this point and I will not attempt to make an early judgment. What we know is that each of the two candidates will change their media policy in the weeks ahead; they will align their message to a situation where Bayrou and Le Pen are no longer there. And the big question is of course how those that voted for Bayrou will vote in the second round. This is where I predict the efforts of Sarkozy and Bayrou will be focused: On the other sides of the right left divide, behavior should be far more predictable. From which side of the divide did Bayrou get his support in the first round? Sarkozy has, for historical reasons, portrayed him as a right wing politician. My personal experience, however, is that there are many voters on the traditional left wing that have voted for him in despair over the Royal campaign.