Sarkozy party falls out over Paris mayor primary

France’s mainstream right-wing party, the UMP, on Saturday decided to press on with a primary to pick its candidate for mayor of Paris, despite claims of irregularities. Officials rejected claims that the vote was a “fiasco” after one candidate claimed there were bugs in online voting technology.

Paris mayor hopeful Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet Reuters/Charles Platiau

After a vote for party leader that ended in bitter acrimony between the winner, Jean-François Copé, and former prime minister François Fillon, the UMP’s stab at a US-style primary in the capital has provided new embarrassments.

The chairman of the party’s election committee, Antoine Rufenacht, decreed the vote of party sympathisers would go ahead even though one of the candidates claims the online voting system has bugs.

Rufenacht told the candidates to “shut up”, reminding them that the rules say that they should not make comments while the vote was taking place.

The party’s election committee met on Saturday to address concerns over the online system and decided the vote would continue, despite problems some people had logging on to the site on Friday, the first day of voting.

One of the candidates, Pierre Yves Bournazel, asked for the committee to meet after denouncing what he said were bugs in the system.

“There have been flaws noted by hundreds of Parisians,” he said. “So we must immediately suspend this vote, which, regrettably, has been held up to public ridicule. I say this in the general interest, in the interest of Parisians and of the UMP party.”

A journalist on the Metronews freesheet on Friday claimed to have voted three times in three different names, although she cast a blank vote.

Rufenacht asked voters who encountered problems to try again and Copé called for calm.

Parisians, whether members of the UMP or not, can sign up on the site until 6pm on Monday and vote until 7pm

Former ecology minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who was widely expected to win, ran into trouble with anti-gay marriage campaigners because she abstained when parliament voted on the Socialist-sponsored law.

Bournazel, who has won the support of a hard-right faction, has criticised her action, although he has irritated some campaigners by backing high-profile activist Frigide Barjot’s call for a civil union without adoption rights.

The winner of the primary will be declared right away. He or she will face Socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo in next June’s municipal election.