|
Reader question: Please explain “Socialists’ election to lose” in the following passage: DUMPED in Britain, rejected in Germany, booted out in Sweden and the Netherlands, the left is in decline across Europe. Among the big economies, only Spain is run by Socialists, and even there they are in trouble. The one country where the left ought to stand a good chance of breaking this trend is France, which holds a presidential election in 2017. With Nicolas Sarkozy deeply unpopular and the right having occupied the presidency since 1995, it is the Socialists’ election to lose. But the party has an uncanny talent for blowing its chances by picking the wrong candidate (The man who would be president, Economist.com, January 6, 2011). My comments: It means the Socialists are favored to win the next French election. In fact, the Socialists are so heavily favored that analysts believe the Socialists will win it, unless they self-destruct – do something really stupid and ruin their own chances in the next months. Such as picking the wrong candidate (as mentioned in the article), who will find himself involved in, say, a Silvio Berlusconi-style sex scandal or do something else so terrible that completely makes him unelectable. Sorry, I’m afraid I’ve picked a poor example. Berlusconi, you see, is Italian and he is rich. Filthy rich, in fact as the current Italian Prime Minister is one of the richest men in the world. We can’t realistically expect the Socialist leader from France to be as rich as Berlusconi, or as filthy. But then, realistically, I don’t think the French should expect too much from their Socialist leader, either. Once elected, leaders in the so-called democratic countries are more or less the same – they’re merely politicians, and in this day and age at any rate, politicians the world over are much more capitalistic than socialistic. | 
