DISPUTE SETTLED

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31319, 15 March 1967, Page 13

DISPUTE SETTLED

(N Z.P.A -Reuter—Copyright) AJACCIO (Corsica), Mar. 14. An official electoral board of inquiry in Ajaccio ruled tonight that the Gaullist candidate had won the disputed Bastia constituency in the French General Election, giving the Gaullists an absolute majority in the new National Assembly.

The inquiry was ordered after voting irregularities and overnight demonstrations in Bastia by thousands of supporters of the rival Left-wing Federation. A Paris announcement had said a Gaullist had won in

the constituency, although local officials had reported a partial result in favour of the federation’s candidate, the outgoing deputy. Eighty French riot police were flown into the Mediterranean Island today to guard against new trouble. The election ended yesterday with an unexpected setback for General de Gaulle’s candidates. The commission announcement gave the Gaullists 244 seats, a total already announced early today by the

Interior Ministry, in spite of the absence of final figures from Bastia, Corsica’s second largest town.

The result there was put into doubt by reports that voting papers had been destroyed when a ballot box was nearly thrown into the sea, postal votes had been torn up by demonstrators and 200 more votes counted than there were registered electors in one district.

The disputed ballot boxes were brought to the Corsican capital under police guard and the election board began a recount and investigation. The board announced that Mr Jacque- Faggianelli, the Gaullist candidate, had obtained 18,607 votes against 18,213 for the outgoing deputy, Mr Jean Zucarelli of the Leftwing Socialist Federation. This reversed their positions given in the last partial result, when officials had counted 675 more votes for the federation candidate than the Gaullist with returns awaited from two districts numbering 1210 electors.