Spanish elections and politics

[Upsilon]

And why not a minority government like in Ireland, with a sort of pact where the main opposition party abstains on the budget during 2-3 years ?

[Vosem]

Rajoy: “We have won the elections -- we claim the right to govern”

Well, he will govern - till November or December, when the next elections happen.

Well, if the trends from this election continue, PP/C's will have a majority at the next round and then PP will probably dump him (probably replace him with someone ideologically similar, but Rajoy is poisonous at this point). If trends don't continue and there's not some radical unlikely-seeming change, then Rajoy will continue governing after the third election...

There is, of course, one more, very unsettling possibility. PSOE/Podemos/ERC/CDC/PNV (and outside suppport of EH-Bildu on some votes). It is a majority. Of course, it is a majority with a referendum (and, possibly, not only in Catalunya).

PNV could be convinced to back PSOE for stability's sake, certainly. But would PNV really enter into a coalition with Podemos, whom they are adversarial rivals with in the Basque Country? That seems even less likely than PNV backing the PP.

[Vosem]

There is, of course, one more, very unsettling possibility. PSOE/Podemos/ERC/CDC/PNV (and outside suppport of EH-Bildu on some votes). It is a majority. Of course, it is a majority with a referendum (and, possibly, not only in Catalunya).

That is not a realistic possibility. PSOE and Podemos could have been tried that possibility after the December elections. Iglesias already proposed that agreement in a singular way and PSOE rejected it. The PSOE's Federal Committee held days after the previous election banned deals with Catalan separatist parties. It's more likely that PP, PSOE and C's start tripartite negotiations. Prospects are uncertain, but they will be pressured to prevent a third election.

Why would they need C in it? They have a majority between the two of them. Why share spoils with C?

PP/C's may be more palatable for PSOE to support from the outside than just PP. An outright PP/PSOE coalition seems unlikely even if Sanchez (who is strongly against any cooperation with PP) were to be removed by an internal coup.

Since Sanchez overperformed his polling and has maintained PSOE's status as the preeminent Spanish left, I would imagine he hangs on, which makes the chances of a PP/PSOE agreement -- of any sort -- very minute. Rajoy's leadership has also been bolstered by this election.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I still think a technocrat ia most likely. That way Rajoy can still control PP for embezzlement purposes and C's/PSOE don't get roasted alive.

Remember at some point, people like the ratings agencies and the like will start to put out warnings if yet another election is called (especially as there doesn't seem to be a huge probability that a third election will be any more stable than this one).

[ag]

And why not a minority government like in Ireland, with a sort of pact where the main opposition party abstains on the budget during 2-3 years ?

It could be a minority government, of course. But that pretty much means a PP/C coalition with PSOE on the outside. And that is exactly feasibility of what we have been discussing here. Still, it is far from clear that PSOE would abstain.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I'm thinking that Podemos need to sideline Pablo Iglasias atm (Like Grillo has withdrawn from the Star Movement). Like he would still be the leader of the party, but not the candidate up for PM. Velasco any thoughts?

[ag]

I still think a technocrat ia most likely. That way Rajoy can still control PP for embezzlement purposes and C's/PSOE don't get roasted alive.

Remember at some point, people like the ratings agencies and the like will start to put out warnings if yet another election is called (especially as there doesn't seem to be a huge probability that a third election will be any more stable than this one).

Makes sense. Felipe should propose a name.

[Velasco]

I'm thinking that Podemos need to sideline Pablo Iglasias atm (Like Grillo has withdrawn from the Star Movement). Like he would still be the leader of the party, but not the candidate up for PM. Velasco any thoughts?

It would depend on how they manage the disappointing results and in the continuity of Unidos Podemos as a long-term alliance. I think it's in Podemos and IU interests keeping the alliance or even deepening the ties between the different organisations, including ECP in Catalonia and the other regional alliances. Maybe Ada Colau or even Alberto Garzón (who has good approval rates) could be fitting candidates.

[jaichind]

100% in

PP           33.03%       137
PSOE       22.66%        85
Podemos  21.10%        71 
C             13.05%        32

[jaichind]

Senate count is mostly done as well

PP              130  (+6)
PSOE           43  (-4)
Podemos      16  (--)
ERC-CATSÍ    10 (+4)

[Velasco]

Leading party by province. Circles are the 52 municipalities over 125,000 inhabitants. Try to spot the differences with the map posted in page 35.



Results and swing*

PP 33.03% (+4.31%) 137 (+14 seats)

PSOE 22.66% (+0.65%) 85 (-5) seats

Unidos Podemos 21.1% (-3.23%) 71 (=) seats

C's 13.05% (-0.88%) 32 (-8) seats

ERC 2.63% (+0.34%) 9 (=) seats

CDC 2.01% (-0.24%) 8 (=) seats

EAJ-PNV 1.2% (=) 5 (-1) seats

EH Bildu 0.77% (-0.1%) 2 (=) seats

CC-PNC 0.33% (=) 1 (=) seats

Turnout 69.84% (-3.36%)

Raw vote swings:

PP +690,655  PSOE -105,984  UP -1,062,704  C's -376,677

* _{Percentages and swings referred only to votes cast in Spain. Overseas vote is not counted yet.}

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, that was one considerable waste of time, money and energy.

[Zinneke]

Just to answer two points I have seen on here :

- the likelihood of PNV joining a right-wing PP/C government is next to nothing due to their previous backing of a PP government being acrimonious (twas a long time ago though) resulting in the unilateral Devolution plan. Furthermore, the elcotral field in the Basque Countries is so competetive being seen as a PP sympathiser would be the final nail in the coffin of PNV hegemony in the region.

- C's will be included in any PP-PSOE coalition because they will have to present this bipartismo deal as some kind of political renewal and C's will suffer like the Libdems did in the next election because of it.

[Velasco]

Well, that was one considerable waste of time, money and energy.

Sadly, this is true. Personally I didn't like the PSOE-C's agreement, but in hindsight it would have been preferable that Podemos abstained in the investiture and gave Pedro Sánchez a try. I think that Errejón was somewhat favourable to that option. Podemos would have been as the main opposition force in the Left. Anyway it was very complicated and the increasing hostility between Podemos and C's didn't help the "new politics" and the "democratic regeneration". Also, who could have imagined the impact of Brexit? Finally, it's truly sad that corruption doesn't pay. Fear is much stronger than decency, it seems.

[Nanwe]

Well, that was one considerable waste of time, money and energy.

Sadly, this is true. Personally I didn't like the PSOE-C's agreement, but in hindsight it would have been preferable that Podemos abstained in the investiture and gave Pedro Sánchez a try. I think that Errejón was somewhat favourable to that option. Podemos would have been as the main opposition force in the Left. Anyway it was very complicated and the increasing hostility between Podemos and C's didn't help the "new politics" and the "democratic regeneration". Also, who could have imagined the impact of Brexit? Finally, it's truly sad that corruption doesn't pay. Fear is much stronger than decency, it seems.

Well, imagine how pissed I am since I really liked the agreement. It wasn't only the Brexit though, it seems - although we won't know until the post-electoral CIS - that Podemos' policy of pacts backfired on them, and only did not lose more votes by leeching them from IU.

Honest to God, I was enjoying the doom-and-gloom cries of peviously-overconfident podemitas on Facebook yesterday, except for this means 4 more years.

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The PNV will not join, but it can support it or abstain, like in '96. The PNV is polling at 17% of the vote in the Basque Country, and although the electoral system there helps them (25 seats each province regardless population), Podemos is a dangerous menace. They'll come first, but the PNV is menaced by Podemos. And this time, the classical PNV-PSE coalition will not do, they need someone else. It's not going to be Bildu, and it's not going to be Podemos ... Only the PP can deliver.

Plus the PNV is opportunistic/pragmatic (depends on POV), so they'll say they got dirty to best defend Euskadi's rights. It tends to work for them. Especially because a left-wing government seem unlikely, except for some weird PSOE-Podemos-Ciudadanos deal.

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It's possible but not likely. Although some voters of C's vote them as a non-radical renewal option, many of their voters are centrists and liberals who like moderation and support their party acting as a media res.

Seeing as how C's lost 8 seats with a 0.8 pp. loss, they are gonna go and demand 1) Electoral reform, 2) Rajoy's head and 3) Some other sh**t, like the National Education Pact, etc.

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On 20D, Podemos (without the regional outfits) and IU added up to 16.4%. Now, they are at 13.3%. The autonomic outfits however, remained at around 7.7%. The autonomist strategy has worked. So the failure is in the infamous ideological axis. UP did not managed the much-desired Carmena effect: The sum of the centre-left vote around them as the only viable option against the PP. In fact, it has probably made them lose both true believers (from IU, unhappy with the forms of the agreement led by Podemos) and moderates, afraid of Iglesias' more frontist proposal.

[ag]

PSOE has declared it will neither join with PP, nor abstain.

What other options are there?

Frankly, I think HM should invite a technocrat ASAP.

[Nanwe]

PSOE has declared it will neither join with PP, nor abstain.

What other options are there?

Frankly, I think HM should invite a technocrat ASAP.

PP government with C's as junior coalition partner thanks to the support/abstention of PNV (5 seats), CC (1 seat) and Nueva Canaria (1 seat, individual party that however ran with the PSOE in the election but does not answer to its whip iirc)

[ag]

PSOE has declared it will neither join with PP, nor abstain.

What other options are there?

Frankly, I think HM should invite a technocrat ASAP.

PP government with C's as junior coalition partner thanks to the support/abstention of PNV (5 seats), CC (1 seat) and Nueva Canaria (1 seat, individual party that however ran with the PSOE in the election but does not answer to its whip iirc)

Will abstension of PNV be enough? The government in this case has 171 votes with 174 against it.

And would the leftists in Nueva Canarias want it?

[Vosem]

PSOE has declared it will neither join with PP, nor abstain.

What other options are there?

Frankly, I think HM should invite a technocrat ASAP.

PP government with C's as junior coalition partner thanks to the support/abstention of PNV (5 seats), CC (1 seat) and Nueva Canaria (1 seat, individual party that however ran with the PSOE in the election but does not answer to its whip iirc)

Will abstension of PNV be enough? The government in this case has 171 votes with 174 against it.

And would the leftists in Nueva Canarias want it?

On the first ballot of an investiture, you need 176 votes to form a government, but on a subsequent one you need 176 votes to stop a government from forming. The government would have 169 votes, but there are only 174 against it in this scenario, so on the second ballot it would work (unless the Canarians or the PNV back out). Whether the Canarians or the PNV would be down, well...

This is just another variant of the PP/C's/PNV/Canarians axis I was discussing upthread (which received, in my count, 175 votes total -- it does add up to 176, a majority, if you add the PSOE-aligned Canarians to the mix. How realistic that addition is, I don't know).

And, honestly, would PP even back a technocrat after having come in first in two elections straight? I think they could be motivated to dump Rajoy in favor of someone else (Rivera even suggested some names in an interview; he said Javier Maroto and Fernando Martinez Maillo would both be acceptable, though Maillo criticized Rivera for even bringing his name up), but they  may outright vote against some technocrat who comes from outside the party. PSOE/C's, as we've already seen, is not sufficient to form government, and both just lost seats in the elections.

[ag]

On the first ballot of an investiture, you need 176 votes to form a government, but on a subsequent one you need 176 votes to stop a government from forming.

If that were the case, PNV and CC would be all you needed. Nueva Canarias is only there to get the 176th vote.

But it is not the case. I just checked the constitution. On the second vote you, indeed, only need a plurality instead of majority. This is why PSOE abstaining works. However, if PNV abstains and everybody else votes predictably, it will be, at best (even with Nuevas Canarias in favor of PP) 171 in favor, 174 against, and this is NOT enough. PNV must actively support the PP government, or else it simply does not have enough votes. Curiously, CDC abstaining, while PNV votes against, would have been enough.

Article 33, Section 3: Si el Congreso de los Diputados, por el voto de la mayoría absoluta de sus miembros, otorgare su confianza a dicho candidato, el Rey le nombrará Presidente. De no alcanzarse dicha mayoría, se someterá la misma propuesta a nueva votación cuarenta y ocho horas después de la anterior, y la confianza se entenderá otorgada si obtuviere la mayoría simple.

If the Congress of Deputies, by the vote of an absolute majority of its members gives its confidence to the said candidate, the King names him President. If the said majority is not reached, the same proposal is submitted to a new vote fourty eight hours after the previous one, and the confidence shall be understood given if it obtains a simple majority <plurality>.

[ag]

And, honestly, would PP even back a technocrat after having come in first in two elections straight?

As long as C is on board, PP agreement is not necessary.

[Velasco]

PSOE has declared it will neither join with PP, nor abstain.

What other options are there?

Frankly, I think HM should invite a technocrat ASAP.

PP government with C's as junior coalition partner thanks to the support/abstention of PNV (5 seats), CC (1 seat) and Nueva Canaria (1 seat, individual party that however ran with the PSOE in the election but does not answer to its whip iirc)

The agreement between PSOE and Nueva Canarias (NC) only binds centre-left regionalists to support the investiture of the socialist candidate. Elected MP Pedro Quevedo stated that he's more inclined to vote against Rajoy and in neither case he will support the PP candidate, but he doesn't discard to abstain previous consultation with PSOE. This time the PSOE-NC coalition came second in Las Palmas province and NC won a seat in the Senate (Gran Canaria island).

On the first ballot of an investiture, you need 176 votes to form a government, but on a subsequent one you need 176 votes to stop a government from forming. The government would have 169 votes, but there are only 174 against it in this scenario, so on the second ballot it would work (unless the Canarians or the PNV back out). Whether the Canarians or the PNV would be down, well...

In the second ballot the candidate needs a plurality, that is to say more votes in favour than against. It's like ag said just a moment ago.

[Velasco]

Well, that was one considerable waste of time, money and energy.

Sadly, this is true. Personally I didn't like the PSOE-C's agreement, but in hindsight it would have been preferable that Podemos abstained in the investiture and gave Pedro Sánchez a try. I think that Errejón was somewhat favourable to that option. Podemos would have been as the main opposition force in the Left. Anyway it was very complicated and the increasing hostility between Podemos and C's didn't help the "new politics" and the "democratic regeneration". Also, who could have imagined the impact of Brexit? Finally, it's truly sad that corruption doesn't pay. Fear is much stronger than decency, it seems.

Well, imagine how pissed I am since I really liked the agreement. It wasn't only the Brexit though, it seems - although we won't know until the post-electoral CIS - that Podemos' policy of pacts backfired on them, and only did not lose more votes by leeching them from IU.

Honest to God, I was enjoying the doom-and-gloom cries of peviously-overconfident podemitas on Facebook yesterday, except for this means 4 more years.

Obviously it wasn't only Brexit, but it's logical to think that finally it created a climate of fear that had a significant effect on voting. The question is that polls were suggesting that the period of fruitless talks was eroding Podemos, while IU was growing because of the "constructive" attitude of Alberto Garzón and his good public image. When the UP alliance was announced, polls said that it was getting momentum and no one predicted that PSOE was going to hold the second place in popular vote. What happened them? As you say, we'll have to wait for the CIS post-election survey. 'Experts' will have to sound convincing, because this time polling industry failed miserably. It's interesting the Jorge Galindo article that you linked.

On a side note, I abstained myself of log in Facebook or other social networks on Sunday. I have friends that are activists and they were overconfident about the UP success. I can't blame them because polls said what they said. I never engage in discussions with social network activists of whatever ideology, on the other hand. Since Brexit happened, my gut told me that it would have an effect. Anyway, I never imagined this result.   

[Nanwe]

Well, that was one considerable waste of time, money and energy.

Sadly, this is true. Personally I didn't like the PSOE-C's agreement, but in hindsight it would have been preferable that Podemos abstained in the investiture and gave Pedro Sánchez a try. I think that Errejón was somewhat favourable to that option. Podemos would have been as the main opposition force in the Left. Anyway it was very complicated and the increasing hostility between Podemos and C's didn't help the "new politics" and the "democratic regeneration". Also, who could have imagined the impact of Brexit? Finally, it's truly sad that corruption doesn't pay. Fear is much stronger than decency, it seems.

Well, imagine how pissed I am since I really liked the agreement. It wasn't only the Brexit though, it seems - although we won't know until the post-electoral CIS - that Podemos' policy of pacts backfired on them, and only did not lose more votes by leeching them from IU.

Honest to God, I was enjoying the doom-and-gloom cries of peviously-overconfident podemitas on Facebook yesterday, except for this means 4 more years.

Obviously it wasn't only Brexit, but it's logical to think that finally it created a climate of fear that had a significant effect on voting. The question is that polls were suggesting that the period of fruitless talks was eroding Podemos, while IU was growing because of the "constructive" attitude of Alberto Garzón and his good public image. When the UP alliance was announced, polls said that it was getting momentum and no one predicted that PSOE was going to hold the second place in popular vote. What happened them? As you say, we'll have to wait for the CIS post-election survey. 'Experts' will have to sound convincing, because this time polling industry failed miserably. It's interesting the Jorge Galindo article that you linked.

On a side note, I abstained myself of log in Facebook or other social networks on Sunday. I have friends that are activists and they were overconfident about the UP success. I can't blame them because polls said what they said. I never engage in discussions with social network activists of whatever ideology, on the other hand. Since Brexit happened, my gut told me that it would have an effect. Anyway, I never imagined this result.  

I don't either, but when they start decrying 'electoral fraud' or pucherazos or calling for the elderly and the people in rural Spain to f-word off and die well... It gets old quickly.

[Velasco]

I don't either, but when they start decrying 'electoral fraud' or pucherazos or calling for the elderly and the people in rural Spain to f-word off and die well... It gets old quickly.

Yes, I know what are you talking about. I'm pretty sure that oranges and the rest of parties have this type of 'social network activists', that in most cases are just internet trolls. My activist friends are not of that type, but sometimes they piss me with some comments. Maybe activism is incompatible with having a critical eye. At least that's my impression in most cases.