Spanish elections and politics III / Pedro Sánchez faces a new term as PM

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The last time that turnout broke 70%:



I think we might see somewhat of a redux: turnout skyrockets, PP dominates, PSOE falls, left of the PSOE improves its standing.

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GAD3 exit poll:

PP: 43,7% 62-65 seats
PSOE: 18,4%, 25-28 seats
MM: 16,1%, 21-24 seats
Vox: 9,2%, 12-14 seats
UP: 7,9%, 10-11 seats
C’s: 3,2%, 0 seats

Sociométrica
PP: 40% 58-62 seats
MM: 19,8% 26-29 seats
PSOE: 19,3%26-29 seats
Vox: 10,6% 13-15 seats
UP: 5,2% , 0-8 seats
C’s: 4%, 0 seats

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With almost a fifth of the vote counted, the right is leading by double digits, both in terms of percentage of the vote and seats. It’s only going to get worse, as Madrid has a heavy left-wing counting bias. A right-wing landslide is very likely.

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The PSOE is going to fall to third place anytime now. Más Madrid is less than 3000 votes away, and most of the vote that remains comes from the city of Madrid, MM’s stronghold. Truly disastrous results for the socialists.

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Not a very mentioned statistic, but Ayuso is on track to break Esperanza Aguirre’s raw vote total record of 1,592,162 ballots, which dates back to the 2007 regional election.

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Pablo Iglesias announces he’s retiring from politics.

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My guess is ERC throwing out the government by refusing to vote for a budget, out of a calculus that a PP-Vox government will grow pro-independence sentiments in Catalonia.

I doubt ERC will follow the wreaking havoc at all costs policy, perfectly encapsulated in Mariano Rajoy’s “cuanto peor para todos, mejor” (the worse for everyone, the better) pearl of wisdom. That is a pathway to independence espoused by the sect of Puigdemontology, also known as Junts.

In contrast, Republicans have been following a moderate conciliatory stance for some time now, which involves negotiating legislation with the PSOE-UP coalition in Madrid and pursuing channels of communication with the state to resolve the Catalan question. The public objective of this is to achieve self-determination through dialogue, the private objective (IMO) is to defuse the conflict in order to prepare for the next big push for independence. While being rhetorically harsh, ERC doesn’t show any signs of changing this strategy. In fact, throughout post-regional election government formation negotiations, it has refused attempts by the Witnesses of Puigdemont (sorry, Junts) to impose a joint separatist voting line in the Congress of Deputies, which would block any ERC overtures to Pedro Sánchez.

And, even if ERC does end up changing its mind and the government fails to pass the next budget, it could always govern without one until 2023. After all, the 2018 PP budget lasted until 2021 without major hindrance.

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Speaking of Catalonia, a repeat election is now likely. After three months of squabbling, bridges between ERC and Junts seem to have been burned down for good. For how it all came to this point, it’s a bit complicated:

After the election in February, ERC sought to fulfill its pledge of forming a pro-independence government. It quickly sealed down an agreement with the CUP to support Pere Aragonés’ investiture as regional president and it also made a gesture towards Junts by electing their leader Laura Borràs as Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, while at the same time rejecting any possibility of an understanding with the PSC.

Thus, ERC started negotiations with Junts with the aim of forming a coalition between them. In terms of policy and cabinet posts they seemed to go smoothly. The main hurdle, and apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back, was that Junts demanded that ERC, Junts and CUP deputies in the Congress vote the same way in all matters, effectively stopping ERC from reaching agreements with the national government.

ERC refused to surrender the autonomy of its parliamentary group in Madrid, and chances of a coalition agreement started to dwindle. ERC tried to pressure Junts by calling an investiture vote for Aragonés in late March, which failed due to Junts abstaining, starting the countdown towards new elections. After more rounds of fruitless coalition negotiations, ERC gave up on a joint government and sought to form a minority one made up of ERC ministers only.

Junts initially accepted to tolerate an ERC minority government, but it threw a poisoned chalice to the Republicans, saying that they would only provide the minimum amount of ‘yes’ votes necessary for an investiture vote to succeed (four, while their other deputies abstained). The trick here was that the number of votes they offered was only enough for ERC to outvote the unionists if it managed to gather support of not only the CUP, but also ECP, which had been ignored in negotiations until now.

Theoretically, this last option could have worked out, since ECP’s only condition to support an ERC executive is that Junts doesn’t form part of it. However, Junts changed its mind again today and decided that a minority government was unacceptable and that it wanted a coalition after all. The thing is, ERC categorically ruled out a coalition after getting tired of Junts’ bullsh**t and won’t go back to square one. Which is why elections are likely now.

If the impasse isn’t broken within the next two weeks, Catalans will go to the polls in Summer.

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Two new polls came out of Catalonia over the weekend. They suggest that if a second election were to be held, PSC, ERC and PP would be the main beneficiaries, with C's and PDECAT as the losers:

GAD3 for La Vanguardia:

PSC: 36 seats (+3), 25.4% (+2,4)
ERC: 35 seats (+2), 22.2% (+0,9)
Junts: 33 seats (+1), 20.8% (+0,7)
PP: 8 seats (+5), 7.0% (+3,2)
Vox: 8 seats (-3), 6.3% (-1,4)
CUP: 8 seats (-1), 6.2% (-0,5)
ECP: 7 seats (-1), 6.4% (-0,5)
C's: 0 seats (-6), 2.3% (-3,3)
PDECAT: 0 seats (=), 0.8% (-1,9)

Turnout: 56% (+4,7)

Pro-independence: 76 seats (+2), 50% (-0,8)
Pro-union: 52 seats (-1), 41% (+0,9)
Ambiguous: 7 seats (-1), 6.4% (-0,5)

Left-wing: 86 seats (+3), 60.2% (+2,3)
Right-wing: 16 seats (-4), 16.4% (-3,4)
Catch-all: 33 seats (+1), 20.8% (+0,7)

Possible majorities:
PSC+ERC: 71 seats
PSC+ERC+ECP: 78 seats
ERC+Junts: 68 seats
ERC+Junts+CUP: 76 seats
ERC+Junts+CUP+ECP: 83 seats


GESOP for El Periódico

PSC: 37/38 seats (+4/+5), 26.2% (+3,2)
ERC: 34/36 seats (+1/+3), 22.5% (+1,2)
Junts: 25/27 seats (-7/-5), 17.0% (-3,1)
Vox: 10/11 seats (-1/+0), 7.7% (+0,0)
CUP: 9/10 seats (+0/+1), 7.5% (+0,8)
ECP: 8/9 seats (+0/+1), 6.9% (+0.0)
PP: 5/6 seats (+2/+3), 4.9% (+1,1)
C's: 3/4 seats (-3/-2), 4.0% (-1,6)
PDECAT: 0 seats (=), 1.3% (-1,4)

Turnout: N/A

Pro-independence: 68/73 seats (-6/-1), 48.3% (-2,5)
Pro-union: 55/59 seats (+2/+6), 42.8% (+2,7)
Ambiguos: 8/9 seats (+0/+1), 6.9% (+0,0)

Left-wing: 88/93 seats (+5/+10), 63.1% (+5,2)
Right-wing: 18/21 seats (-2/+1), 17.9% (-1,9)
Catch-all: 25/27 seats (-7/-5), 17.0% (-3,1)

Possible majorities:
PSC+ERC: 71/74 seats
PSC+ERC+ECP: 79/83 seats
ERC+Junts+CUP: 68/73 seats
ERC+Junts+CUP+ECP: 77/83 seats

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Worth mentioning that Junts gets control of the EU recovery fund thanks to the Economy post. Anyways, regardless of this deal, instability is unlikely to go away as long as the Bibi of Girona remains the gravity center of Catalan politics. The result is a couple more years of constant squabbling between ERC and Junts and continuing deadlock regarding independence.

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A migratory crisis is unfolding in Ceuta, one of the two Spanish Autonomous Cities which are located on the African continent. Eight thousand migrants and counting have crossed the Moroccan border in the last couple of days, with the army being forced to step in to try and control a situation which has overwhelmed local authorities.

The root of this sudden chaos lies in last April, when the 72-year old Polisario Front leader and President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara), Brahim Gali, was admitted as a patient in a Logroño hospital in order to receive treatment for Covid-19. This was possible thanks to a secret agreement between the Algerian and Spanish governments, after Germany allegedly refused to take him in.

Morocco was obviously less than pleased with Gali’s presence in Spain, and warned that there would be consequences for it. In the meantime, Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya (PSOE) defended the government’s decision on humanitarian grounds.

The consequences that Morocco warned of were the relaxation of immigration controls on the Spanish-Moroccan border, which has directly caused the current crisis. There is even imagery of Moroccan gendarmery opening the gates for migrants on the Moroccan side of the border. These migrants later swim around the border fence to reach Spanish territory.

The number of border crossings is unprecedented with dramatic scenes of migrants suffering from hypothermia and entire families with children stranded on beaches coming out of Ceuta. The scale of the situation is so far-reaching that, in addition to the army, Pedro Sánchez and the Interior Minister have traveled to the city to engage in crisis management.

After being rescued and, if necessary, receiving basic medical care from the Red Cross and the military, most adult immigrants are returned to Morocco at the spot, only minors being allowed to stay for now. So far, 4.000 have been expelled. This is technically illegal, but the authorities claim that they are going back voluntarily.

At home, a demonstration has been called at the Moroccan embassy in Madrid to protest the country’s actions. Vox has stated that Spain faces an outright invasion, even a second Green March, blaming the government for “surrendering” the frontier; while the left is calling out Morocco for attempting to hold the country hostage over Brahim Gali’s stay in Logroño.

The crisis is unlikely to abide until the diplomatic standoff between Morocco and Spain is resolved. The Moroccan ambassador insisted on the notion that actions have consequences, while the European Union has pledged full support to Spain to maintain order in “Europe’s southern border”.

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Relations between Morocco and Spain are at a low point right now. The Moroccan ambassador has left Spain and says she won't come back as long as Brahim Ghali remains on Spanish soil, while Defence Minister Margarita Robles (PSOE) gave a defiant TV interview in which she accused the Moroccan government of blackmail.

In Ceuta, the flow of migrants has finally been stopped after Moroccan authorities reclosed the border. Over 6.000 have been returned to the African country, according to the government. 200 unaccompanied minors who already found themselves in Ceutan facilities will be reallocated to other Autonomous Communities, in order to make space for the 850 new minors that have arrived over the past few days and are entitled to stay in the country.

As for domestic political developments regarding the crisis, the PP is blaming UP for causing the diplomatic rift with Morocco, pointing to the party's continued support for Western Sahara's self-determination. Also, there are reports that there was division within the cabinet at the time of deliberating whether to let Brahim Ghali stay in Logroño, with Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska allegedly opposing the Foreign Ministry's decision.

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Leadership changes in the left

Podemos Congress

Podemos is having its Fourth Citizen Assembly right now, for the first time without God, also known as Pablo Iglesias. Today, free and fair primaries were held, in which party members got to express their will to elect Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra as the new Secretary-General of Podemos. Results of this hotly (un)contested race will be announced tomorrow, though the base's enthusiasm for the three candidates (Belarra, a councillor from a town with a population of less than 20.000 and a random Podemos member) was reflected in a 38,5% turnout.

In addition to anointing Belarra as Secretary-General, He has determined that the best course of action is to have a dual leadership and, accordingly, has touched Yolanda Díaz to be UP's candidate for the 2023 election. Of course, in due time UP's components will also get the chance to democratically choose her.

PSOE-A leadership contest

In a more interesting primary, the membership of the Andalusian branch of the PSOE will decide tomorrow who gets to lose next year's regional election to president Juanma Moreno (PP). The reason to watch out is that this is an internal battle within the PSOE-A, and political junkies have been longing for some good old-fashioned socialist drama.

On one side, there is incumbent Secretary-General Susana Díaz, whose impressive record includes going from prospective first female PM to actual first socialist opposition leader in Andalusia, losing along the way the leadership of the national party to a guy who had just resigned in disgrace from that same post and who (in his late 30s!) used to spent much of his time tweeting stuff like this and this. Since that guy became PM, she has had to give up her favorite hobby of plotting his downfall, so she has taken on a new one: stubbornly clinging on to her office.

However, the PM guy and his esteemed advisor, Dominic Cummings with hair implants, are not having it; so they have propped up an opponent, Sevilla mayor Juan Espadas, in order to refresh the leadership of the PSOE-A (translation: install a loyalist). He has the advantage of not being Susana Díaz, and the disadvantage of being the candidate of Pedro Sánchez and the aforementioned advisor, whose decision-making has been widely questioned in the party after piloting the Madrid fiasco.

There's also a third candidate, but he doesn't matter.

The results should be available by this time tomorrow, and if no candidate obtains at least 50% of the vote, a runoff will be held in a week. Díaz's re-election would mean that there is, after all, some level of real internal opposition to Pedro Sánchez, not just dinosaurs and mummys from the González era. That is the last thing our fearless leader needs, considering that his government is under fire for soon-to-be-granted partial pardons to the jailed pro-independence politicians.

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Finally some good news for Pedro Sánchez. He’s also getting a nice photo-op with Biden tomorrow (after being snubbed for months by the White House), so they must be pretty happy in Moncloa Palace.

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GAD3 published a poll today, which concerned the government's performance on several issues and public opinion on pardons. Thankfully, they did not use the dreadful 1-10 scales Spanish pollsters normally opt for when dealing with approval numbers and instead showed their results in percentages.

Anyways, the findings were as follows:

Government approval

On the vaccination process:
Approve: 75,4%
Disapprove: 21,5%

On LGBT+ rights:
Approve: 69,8%
Disapprove: 11,8%

On possible pardon granting:
Approve: 24,9%
Disapprove: 62,9%

On the crisis with Morocco:
Approve: 16,6%
Disapprove: 56,8%

On the new electricity bill:
Approve: 3,6%
Disapprove: 93,4%

Do you agree with the following statement?

"The pardons are necessary to improve the political situation in Catalonia"
Yes: 34,1% (63% in Catalonia)
No: 51,8% (27% in Catalonia)

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Well, the dreaded "P-day" has arrived. Today at a speech in Barcelona, Pedro Sanchez announced that he will pardon the Catalan secessionists currently in jail tomorrow Tuesday.

They will only be partial, so while all their prison sentences will be pardoned, the ban from holding public office will not be pardoned

Still this is a big earthquake even if it was very much expected (in fact I wonder to what extent will this affect politics, if it does at all, everyone expected this for a while now)

Yeah, everyone knew pardons were coming, so it probably won’t change things very much. The left is polling weakly, and if you take into account polarization, there isn’t much room to go lower; while the right is already fired up as it is.

At the end of the day, pardons are very unpopular, but in the grand scheme of things they are a necessary evil for the government.

First, they guarantee ERC parliamentary support until the next election, and that implies that Spaniards will go to the polls whenever Pedro Sánchez decides. He can wait until Autumn 2023, as he intends, and enjoy the credit for the soon-to-come economic recovery and the end of pandemic-related restrictions.

Second, they make the Catalonia fade away as an issue somewhat. For months on end, we have seen pundits, politicians and columnists wondering about whether the government was going to grant pardons or not. That hurt the coalition during a longer period of time than the actual granting will. The right can’t use the looming threat of pardons if they have already been granted. And using their granting in 2023 won’t be very effective if they haven’t resulted in the dissolution of Spain (which is no hyperbole on my part, they’re actually claiming this). Moreover, who is going to even remember them in two and a half years?

Leaving aside the political considerations, I expect pardons to defuse the situation. They are a powerful gesture to Catalan society, even if the pro-independence parties are not showing much benevolence with the government and radical separatist groupings continue to agitate. I think the large majority of Catalans are happy with them and believe they are long overdue.

The problem is that the structural cause of the Catalan conflict, and the reason why it will never be solved in the short-term, remains. And that is self-determination. The government cannot allow a referendum, because constitutional reform would be needed and the right will never give its indispensable support to such a reform. Not even the PSOE accepting self-determination is currently conceivable. On the other hand, the Catalan government cannot renounce self-determination because it would mean the end of whichever pro-indy party that does so and its subsequent replacement by another one.

They can both negotiate all they want to in their roundtable, but Barcelona will never give up and Madrid will never give in. No one can win. So, what is the inescapable outcome? Progressive and quiet de-escalation until the conflict exists only for posturing.

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What do you think the chance is of 1. a unionist or at least non-separatist (eg the famed PSC-ERC-ECP coalition) government in Catalonia in the near future, and 2. if that occurs, the deescalation of the overall conflict, either within Catalonia or between Catalonia and the national government?

First of all, pro-independence parties losing their majority in the Parlament is extremely unlikely thanks to the electoral system, which benefits the smaller independence-leaning provinces of Lleida and Girona. It was only threatened in 2017 due to massive unionist turnout, and even then they managed to retain it.

The last time a unionist government came into question was in that same year, 2017. It was always unlikely, since the unionist bloc (C’s-PSC-PP) would’ve have needed the support of the pro-referendum ECP to garner a majority, whose backing was very much not guaranteed. Of course, the pro-independence parties ended up with a majority of their own and the question became moot.

In 2021, and for the foreseeable future, it is a practical impossibility. It would have to be a coalition including everyone from ECP to Vox, and Catalonia is not Israel. Plus, as we said earlier, the electoral system makes it so that in all likelihood the possibility would not even exist.

As for a PSC-ERC-ECP coalition, the numbers are there and the political will is lacking. Perhaps if the independence debate wears down, ERC will become more receptive to this constellation, but again, self-determination is the main rupture point. Either PSC or ERC (the second, most likely) would have to implicitly concede its position, which would have electoral consequences for them. So, not impossible, but quite difficult in the short to medium term.

It certainly would do a lot to de-escalate the conflict, being a cross-bloc alliance. However, Catalans still wouldn’t have had the chance of voting in a referendum and Catalan separatists would still have the aim of achieving independence some day; meaning that the situation would be prone to reignite itself at some point, especially if a PP-Vox coalition took power in Madrid.

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Well, so Albert Rivera has returned home... to the PP.

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Morning of the Long Knives
Deputy PM Calvo and the Foreign Affairs, Education, Science, Justice, Transport and Culture ministers are out, along with Moncloa Chief of Staff Iván Redondo. A total and complete massacre.

Female majority cabinets are back
Number of Deputy PMs goes down to three. New First Deputy PM is Nadia Calviño, Economy minister. Sánchez confidante Félix Bolaños replaces Calvo as Minister for the Presidency. Sánchez oldtimer Óscar López makes a comeback as Chief of Staff. Senate President Pilar Llop becomes the new Minister of Justice, rumor has it Susana Díaz could replace her in the upper chamber.

Fresh faces in the rest of posts. Also, mayors. Mayor of Gavá Raquel Sánchez replaces former heavyweight José Luis Ábalos (he is also out as PSOE organization secretary) in Transport, Zaragoza councillor Pilar Alegría is the new Minister for Education and Mayor of Puertollano Isabel Rodríguez comes in as Territorial Policy Minister, replacing Miquel Iceta, who remains in the cabinet as Minister for Culture; in addition to Government Spokesperson. Ambassador to France José Manuel Albares is the new Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Sadly, we no longer have an astronaut in the Council of Ministers. Minister of Science Pedro Duque is being replaced by (surprise, surprise) a mayor. Specifically the Mayor of Gandía, Diana Morant.

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After months of speculation, regional president Fernández Mañueco (PP) has sacked all C’s ministers from his cabinet and called for snap elections in his Castile and León autonomous community, to be held on 13 February.

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BREAKING: The new Labor Reform has been passed by the Spanish Congress in a very tight vote. The 'investiture bloc' (the parties that voted the investiture of Pedro Sánchez) has been broken, in spite of the efforts made by Labor minister Yolanda Díaz to get the support of ERC and PNV. Labor Reform was passed with the support of parties outside the investiture bloc, namely Cs, PDeCAT,  UPN and CC. The support of those parties secured 176 affirmative votes on paper. However, the 2 deputies of the UPN (centre-right regionalists allied to the PP in Navarra) questioned the party's instructions to support the reform. Later it surfaced one of the UPN deputies broke the party's discipline Nervourness and suspense preceded the vote, which final result was 175 Yes against 174 No.

Yes (175) : PSOE (120),  UP (34*),  Cs (9), PDeCAT (4), MP (2), Compromis,  CC (1), NC (1), PRC (1), Teruel Existe! (1) and UPN (1)

No (174): PP (88), VOX (52), ERC (13), PNV (6), EHBildu (5), JxCAT (4), CUP (2), BNG (1), Foro (1), UPN (1) and Mixed **(1)

* Alberto Rodríguez vacated his seat for Santa Cruz de Tenerife and haven't been replaced
** Ex Cs

The Labor Reform was agreed between the mainstream unions (CCOO and UGT) and rmployers' associations after a long negotiation conducted by Yolanda Diaz. Reforming the labor market and tackling the high levels of temporarily are prerequisites to receive the EU Next Generation funds.

ERC, Bildu and other leftwing nationalists voted against the reform arguing it's doesn't fulfill the promise to revoke the previous reform of the PP government led by Mariano Rajoy.  The PNV voted against because it advocates collective agreements in the regions must have preference over nationwide agreements (possibly under the pressure of the Basque Nationalist unión ELA)

Actually, both UPN deputies broke with their party and voted against. The PP expected to inflict a surprise defeat on the government, and they seemed to have gotten away with it when Meritxell Batet, the President of Congress, erroneously announced that the vote had failed (to thunderous applause from the opposition), but immediately after that she corrected herself and announced that it had succeeded (to thunderous applause from the government).

In the end, the reform was approved because a single PP deputy voted for it remotely and mistakenly. PP is now alleging that the deputy in question, Alberto Casero, did vote against the reform, but that Congress’s computer system registered a ‘yes’ vote, in a technical mistake. He (again, allegedly) made this known to the PP and the party supposedly transmitted this to Batet before the vote. PP claims she ignored this information and counted an affirmative vote regardless. However, it seems like the most likely hypothesis is that he just got confused and voted in favor by his own error.

The situation has not been resolved yet. The President of Congress is meeting with the parliamentary parties right now. Precedent states that a vote is valid even if a deputy cast it by mistake, only a technical error could be possibly amended. Fortunately, Congress’s technical services should clarify which way he actually voted. In the meantime, the PP is threatening to take the issue to the Constitutional Court.

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It’s election day in Castile and León!
Turnout at 11:30AM was 11,37%, though this figure does not mean much since no turnout update was given in 2019 at this hour, so we don’t really have anything to compare it to. The only remarkable thing may be that turnout is the highest in the province of Soria, where the most successful localist party (Soria NOW!) is running.

We’ve also known for some days that there has been a 40% decrease in mail ballot requests vis-à-vis the 2019 election. Another sign of lackluster voter engagement was the last CIS survey conducted before polling day, which showed that 60% of the electorate had little or no interest in the election. Lastly, the weather is not very inviting with rain predicted all over the region for this afternoon.

It has been speculated that low turnout would be bad for the PP. Renowned strategist with ties to the party, Narciso Michavila, went as far as to claim that if turnout were to be below 33% at 14:30, the PSOE could upset the PP and win the election; though this seems more like scaremongering on PP voters rather than anything else imo.

There will be further turnout updates at 14:30 and 18:30. Continuing with the weird media unwillingness to conduct exit polls, which has gone on for some years now, we will get polling conducted over the last few days when polls close at 20:00, immediately followed by actual vote counting.

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Turnout was 34,74% at 14:00, down two percentage points. Soria defies the trend with an increase of 0,77%, which is excellent news for Soria Now.

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Keep an eye on Valladolid. It's the largest Province and the one that will probably decide if Cs is in or out of the Legislature. Francisco Igea, CyL's VP, has his seat here and would probably be the only Cs legislator elected if the party's numbers are good enough in the province. I'd wager Cs needs to get ~6% of the vote here to feel comfortable in getting the seat. Of particular importance is the party's performance's in a few of Valladolid's younger "suburbs" (Arroyo, Zaratán) and neighborhoods (Villa del Prado, Las Villas-Covaresa) where the party is strongest in the region. But who knows, D'Hondt is a pain to calculate and a few variables could change that.

Seeing how turnout is increasing the most (or at all) in exactly those places where C’s needs to get its vote out, in their shoes I’d be optimistic about at least retaining Igea’s seat. And pessimistic if I were the PSOE or, especially, the PP; turnout is dropping significantly in rural areas.

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Turnout in provincial capitals at 18:00:
Valladolid: 55,53% (+3,45)
Burgos: 52,30% (+2,74)
Palencia: 52,14% (+1,77)
León: 51,37% (+4,32)
Soria: 51,37% (+5,71)
Salamanca: 50,70% (+3,09)
Ávila: 52,36% (-0,01)
Segovia: 51,48% (-1,34)
Zamora: 46,34% (-2,42)

Compared with 51,62% (-2,08) regionally. Perhaps the collapse in turnout in rural areas is best exemplified by Pablo Casado’s home village, Las Navas del Marqués, where turnout is crashing by 16%.