Overseas elections. SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT IT MEANS. Please.

[malaise]

12. Backgroundf info on Hollande

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/05/06/f-francois-hollande-profile.html
<snip>
A former aide, briefly, to the late president Francois Mitterand, Hollande has also been a member of the French National Assembly for the largely rural constituency of Correze for much of the past 20 years, as well as the mayor of Tulle, its provincial capital, (pop. 15,600) from 2001-08.

But though he was a graduate of France's elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration, he has never run a large organization or even held anything like ministerial rank. He is 57 and has been on a government payroll of one sort or another since his early 20s.

When he first ran for the party's presidential nomination five years ago, he was crushed by his more telegenic partner (and the mother of his four children) Segolene Royal, who went on to lose to Sarkozy.
(Stephane Mahe/Reuters)
A year ago, when he contemplated running again, he barely registered three per cent in the polls.