She is the first member of Elisabeth Borne’s government to qualify for the second round. The Secretary of State for the Sea, Justine Benin, obtained 31.31% of the votes in the first round, Sunday June 12, in the 2nd constituency of Guadeloupe. The outgoing MP, invested by the presidential coalition Together!, is ahead of the various left candidate Christian Baptiste who won 26.76% of the vote.
Ms. Benin will have to win Sunday, June 19, in the second round, to stay in the Borne government, because as in 2017, members of the government candidates for deputy will have to resign in the event of failure. In the government of Elisabeth Borne, Justine Benin is among the fifteen ministers and secretaries of state appointed Friday, May 20 who are running for legislative elections, including the prime minister.
Vote anti-Macron
Candidate under the colors of the presidential majority, the elected Democratic Movement (MoDem) is very locally rooted in her constituency, where she was elected in 2017. Former vice-president of the regional council of Guadeloupe – under the socialist majority of Victorin Lurel, the former Minister of Overseas -, elected MP for the 2nd constituency of Guadeloupe in 2017, under a various leftist label before approaching the MoDem, Justine Benin defended her record during the campaign: three hundred and sixty- eight amendments tabled, of which fifty were adopted, and fourteen parliamentary reports published. She praised the law of April 2021 on water governance in Guadeloupe, the report of the parliamentary commission of inquiry on chlordecone, of which she was the rapporteur, in 2019, but also a subject of medical cooperation with Cuba, among others.
During the first round of the legislative elections, the Secretary of State could have suffered from the strong anti-Macron vote which was expressed in the presidential election. The candidate of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, had then totaled 56.1% of the votes in the first round, while the candidate of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, had gathered 69.6% of the votes in the second round against to Emmanuel Macron. Also, Ms. Benin was able to benefit from the division of the left illustrated by the number of candidates presented in this constituency.
