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

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Test link without Vanguardia' paywall: https://cluster17.com/espagne/
I got "Socialdemocrat"

Tu resultado :
Perteneces al clúster :
"Los antiasistencialistas"

• 5,7% de la población
• Movilización electoral: media
• Intención de voto: 57% Vox, 26% PP, 9% Coalición Canaria

Son uno de los grupos educados y de clase media-alta de España: el 64% tiene un título universitario y el 43% ingresa más de 2.000 euros al mes. Hay una fuerte prevalencia de autónomos. Partidarios del liberalismo económico, tienen posiciones muy marcadas en la mayoría de temas. La libertad es el valor principal que impulsa a los antiasistencialistas; por esta razón, se oponen fuertemente a las medidas restrictivas, especialmente las relacionadas con el medioambiente. Promueven la responsabilidad individual y se oponen a la redistribución de la riqueza y a la inmigración.

Aunque sean favorables a la autoridad del Estado, son la tribu de la derecha menos hostil a los nacionalismos periféricos, y también el que tiene opiniones más divididas sobre la monarquía y la Iglesia. De hecho, son también el grupo menos creyente de la derecha y están bastante abiertos a los cambios en los temas sociales. Votan poco, pero ahora parecen inclinarse mayoritariamente hacia Vox, después de haber sido un punto de equilibrio entre las fuerzas de derecha.

¡¿Estos hombres piensan que yo debería votar por Vox?! Son ellos que pertenecen a un clúster...

Al otro lado, de verdad me gusta su dibujo de un tipo antiasistencialista :

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What happens in case      176 >  (PP + VOX)  > (PSOE + Sumar)  ?

I always assumed that in such a case it will be PSOE + Sumar government with outside support from the anti-VOX regional parties.

Depends how close PP + Vox are to 176; if it's a question of just a few votes they could probably form an agreement with someone (the Canarian Coalition?), but if there's a large amount of support they need to make up it might be easier for PSOE. There could also be new elections; Sánchez remains in power in an acting capacity until a government is actually formed.

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What are the political differences between Ceuta and Melilla? What explains the former going PSOE and the latter going PP?

Looks like mostly vote-splitting? The Ceuta seat was won by Vox outright in 2019, but PP cannibalizing Vox resulted in the seat going to PSOE because neither outpolled PSOE. Also, Melilla has a local left-wing regional party (CpM) which takes votes from PSOE, but nothing like this exists in Ceuta, so in practice Ceuta tends to be more winnable for PSOE even though I think just adding the blocs gets you the result that Melilla is the more left-wing of the two.

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Junts' ancestor parties have backed the left before (explicitly voting for Rodriguez in 1993, and tacitly abstaining for Zapatero in 2008), but have more commonly backed the right (including an explicit vote for Aznar in 1996). Their leader, Puigdemont, was arrested by Pedro Sanchez for essentially political reasons, and I think it's really difficult to imagine them voting for Sanchez, but at the same time they would never join Vox.

If they decide to vote against any kind of government, then I think new elections are totally inevitable. If one side or the other can get them to strategically abstain...then it still seems quite unclear which side would even be 'larger'; this would only be an option for one side or the other.

EDIT: PSOE/Sumar/ERC/Bildu/PNV/BNG are at 172; PP/Vox/CCA/UPN at 171. (CCA could join either side, for the record.) Right now Junts abstaining would reelect Sanchez. I don't think ERC would truly force new elections at which PP might well win if they can take a course of action which would restore Sanchez -- although I might be wrong, and there probably exist currents within the party which would want this. But such an action wouldn't even be particularly strange from Junts, although it's tough to say that it's guaranteed.

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PP-Vox choking... you love to see it! I have a question, are we certain CC would vote for Feijóo? Could they get bribed by the Left? They don't strike me as particularly committed to one side.

No, they could very easily go for either side. At the state level they've backed both sides, although the right more commonly; at the national level over the past few elections they've backed the right (against Sanchez in 2019, abstained in 2018, for Rajoy in 2016) but they are winnable for both.

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In a cruel irony it seems the future of Spanish politics might come down to Puigdemont

Well then there's only two options:

Keep forcing new elections to bring the government to your (from their perspective) unreasonable demands, or maybe the voters overall will change their mind without you.

Let PP and Vox in without actually voting in their favor, and play towards accelerationism.

Surely "let PSOE in without actually voting in their favor" is also an option here; mathematically it looks slightly easier than letting in PP/Vox? Though I'm assuming that ERC would be willing to vote for Sanchez explicitly. If I'm wrong, then those are indeed the two options; PP/Vox and all the Catalan parties together are a very solid 'blocking majority' if both groups are committed to forcing new elections.

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EDIT: PSOE/Sumar/ERC/Bildu/PNV/BNG are at 172; PP/Vox/CCA/UPN at 171. (CCA could join either side, for the record.) Right now Junts abstaining would reelect Sanchez. I don't think ERC would truly force new elections at which PP might well win if they can take a course of action which would restore Sanchez -- although I might be wrong, and there probably exist currents within the party which would want this. But such an action wouldn't even be particularly strange from Junts, although it's tough to say that it's guaranteed.

Not very surprising from Rufian, and this probably means they need Puigdemont to merely abstain rather than actually vote for PSOE, which is a much easier lift. But it isn't guaranteed and there's enough out that we might still be wrong.

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Also, the PSOE's second place in this election is almost a victory. No recorded poll predicted that performance. Never understimate Perro Sánchez

1996 vibes: "Nunca una derrota fue tan dulce y nunca una victoria fue tan amarga"

The Spanish right under-performs in national elections quite a lot, doesn't it? Even besides not winning a landslide in 1996, both 2004 and 2008 were on some level expected to be comfortable victories for them and both ended up as pretty narrow left-wing wins.

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So Sanchez didn't lose, but he also didn't win. And Feijoo won, but he also lost. Don't you just love multi-party provincial D'Hondt?

Feijóo definitely lost in the sense that there's no way on these numbers that he can form a government (although he made large gains, which is a win of sorts in a multi-party system), while Sánchez sort of won in the sense that a path seems to exist, though it's unlikely and new elections are probably likelier than not.

(Although Feijóo came very, very close; I think the question of just how left-wing the CERA vote is pretty critical. If PP can gain just 2 seats, then a Sánchez government is probably totally foreclosed; at that point Sánchez would need Junts to explicitly vote for him, and not just strategically abstain.)

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So Sanchez didn't lose, but he also didn't win. And Feijoo won, but he also lost. Don't you just love multi-party provincial D'Hondt?

Feijóo definitely lost in the sense that there's no way on these numbers that he can form a government (although he made large gains, which is a win of sorts in a multi-party system), while Sánchez sort of won in the sense that a path seems to exist, though it's unlikely and new elections are probably likelier than not.

(Although Feijóo came very, very close; I think the question of just how left-wing the CERA vote is pretty critical. If PP can gain just 2 seats, then a Sánchez government is probably totally foreclosed; at that point Sánchez would need Junts to explicitly vote for him, and not just strategically abstain.)

If Junts votes for PP, then Vox is voting against them. Why would Vox allow an independentista party to prop up any government? They ran on banning them.

At that point, PP/Vox/UPN are at 172, and then all of the parties which are not right or not Junts are at 171-172; thus even Junts abstaining wouldn't be enough to elect Sánchez, because he wouldn't have a plurality without Junts voting for him explicitly. At the moment the question is whether Sánchez can get Junts to strategically abstain.

Of course Junts would not vote for PP. "Voting against every option and forcing a new election" is to some extent the null hypothesis, but "abstaining if it seats Sánchez" is also possible. But explicitly voting for Sánchez seems like a higher ask to me.

(There isn't a risk that voting against Sánchez might seat Feijóo; they could just vote against both. Of course if you force a new election then anything at all might happen in that second election, OTOH.)

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This discussion about how the Spanish right would benefit from Catalonia seceding reminds me of how many conservatives in Canada were secretly hoping Quebec would vote to separate since the extreme unpopularity of the Conservatives in Quebec always made it almost impossible for them to win power nationally.   

Was it that secret? It's never been the stance of the CPC, or any party that truly fought for national power in Canada, but Reform was openly agnostic on the question of Quebec independence, and I think "better apart" is a pretty common sentiment among the Western Canadian non-fringe far-right (here meaning things like the right half of conservative parties, not random people on the Internet).

It's maybe not relevant to a thread on Spain, but it's interesting to consider why the Canadian right is such an outlier here, compared to the Spanish PP or British Tories which are horrified by the prospects of Catalan or Scottish independence. (Note that, as BK has documented, Catalonia isn't actually all that much of a problem for the Spanish right -- and in the pre-Vox days CiU had been a partner in at least one PP-led government -- but certainly Scotland is a very real problem for the British Tories. Quebec seems somewhere in between; BQ does not seem as hostile to the CPC as the SNP is to the Tories.) Part of the story here might be that Catalonia is much wealthier than the rest of Spain, so it receives population growth from the remainder of the country, creating a demographic which is very invested in Catalonia remaining Spanish, while Quebec has the opposite pattern, with English speakers tending to move out. This doesn't explain Scotland, though.

It might be explained by "Canadian" being a much younger identity than "British" or "Spanish", I guess. It seems like relatively more Canadians tend to identify with their particular province rather than the federal Canadian project as a whole.

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I'm not sure I follow why PP gaining this seat means Junts needs to vote 'yes' rather than abstain?

PP/Vox/UPN = 171
PSOE/Sumar/ERC/Bildu/PNV/BNG/CC = 172
Junts = 7

I don't think the math has changed in a meaningful way regarding Junts, but PSOE now absolutely needs CC, which in my understanding is the most questionable inclusion, since they have promised not to support a government which includes Sumar or Vox. If they're serious about that, then this goes to new elections, but it could also be posturing. (With the earlier seat count, CC could've also abstained and PSOE still taken office.)

PP/Vox/UPN = 171
PSOE/Sumar/ERC/Bildu/PNV/BNG = 171
Junts/CC = 8

...truly ridiculous breakdown. I think Sánchez is still in a better position than Feijóo but he wasn't in a great one to start with.

I pointed out that if CERA was even slightly helpful for PP they were quite close to gaining a seat in Madrid and another in Girona, and if they could gain both then new elections became an absolute certainty. Gaining just one seems to me like it keeps Sánchez in the driver's seat, even if only very slightly.

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I'm not sure I follow why PP gaining this seat means Junts needs to vote 'yes' rather than abstain?

you appear to have answered your own question:

PP/Vox/UPN = 171
PSOE/Sumar/ERC/Bildu/PNV/BNG/CC = 172
Junts = 7

I don't think the math has changed in a meaningful way regarding Junts, but PSOE now absolutely needs CC, which in my understanding is the most questionable inclusion, since they have promised not to support a government which includes Sumar or Vox. If they're serious about that, then this goes to new elections, but it could also be posturing. (With the earlier seat count, CC could've also abstained and PSOE still taken office.)

The consensus opinion seems to take their statement at face value, that they can't be persuaded to do anything more than agree to abstain (if even that, not that it matters now)

Yeah, a lot of the earlier commentary seemed to tacitly assume that CC in the left-wing column, but if they're not gettable for Sánchez even in principle then losing one seat to PP worsens his position very meaningfully.

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(Note that, as BK has documented, Catalonia isn't actually all that much of a problem for the Spanish right -- and in the pre-Vox days CiU had been a partner in at least one PP-led government -- but certainly Scotland is a very real problem for the British Tories. Quebec seems somewhere in between; BQ does not seem as hostile to the CPC as the SNP is to the Tories.)

Catalonia comprises about 16% of the population of Spain, whereas Scotland comprises about 8% of the United Kingdom's population.

Sure, and the difference I'm describing is partially just the product of different electoral systems, but the Spanish right derives much more of its support from Catalonia than the Tories do from Scotland. At the most recent election, 16/170 of the seats for PP/Vox came from Catalonia (about 9%), compared to 6/365 Tory seats coming from Scotland (1.6%), and that was a relatively good performance! It's much harder to cut off 10% of your party's representation than 1.6%. The 'Catalan right' is a much larger part of the Spanish system than 'the Scottish Tories'.

Or, to put things differently, Canada is not a nation state and an attempt to turn it into one fed into the already swelling wave of nationalist sentiment in Quebec while also sparking off a fierce regionalist backlash in the Western provinces. This is an entirely different situation to the Spanish one.

This just pushes the question backwards to some extent, as to why the project which turned Spain into a nation state -- which as the outcome of this election shows many of its citizens are still committed to resisting -- was more successful than the project which attempted to turn Canada into a nation state. As my own post noted "Spanish" is a much older identity than "Canadian", but that kind of thing isn't always determinative.

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Here's how Bernie Feijoo can still win govern...

Except Feijoo does have an out in a few months, whereas Bernie never did.

Let's say there is an election in a few months -- is the timing going to be very sudden, such that it would be impractical for the PP to sub in someone else, or are all of the parties going to know about it in advance and be able to set up their campaigns with more foresight? I heard the crowd at the PP election night gathering chanting for Ayuso.

PP can still win, but it seems much less clear to me that Feijóo can. (Even if he can, it might depend on things wholly outside of his control.)

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Sucking voters from Vox might strengthen the right-wing bloc even if PP+Vox doesn't go up at all, right? If Ayuso can get enough voters to switch that PP might not depend on Vox at all, then suddenly a 1996-style arrangement with PNV, or even getting Junts to abstain (less likely), are at least on the table.

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Sucking voters from Vox might strengthen the right-wing bloc even if PP+Vox doesn't go up at all, right? If Ayuso can get enough voters to switch that PP might not depend on Vox at all, then suddenly a 1996-style arrangement with PNV, or even getting Junts to abstain (less likely), are at least on the table.

Vox won't disappear completely and will likely still be required to govern nationally if Ayuso gets in, meaning no regionalist support. Ayuso will probably fancy her chances of replicated her Madrid act though.

Also PP has firmly tied its mast to not accomodating on the territorial governance issue and Ayuso, even though she is running a shadow early2000s-Convergents-but-for-Madrid government regionally (corruption included), she will bang the war drum of Article 155 and snap elections in Catalonia or locking up some more indepes, as well as institutional tackover of the deep state at a higher level.

We are very far from the days when CiU propped up PP in Madrid or PPC propped up CiU in Barcelona. The landscape has changed. Rivera especially forced PP's hand and moved it to the right on that issue alone.  

Doesn't Ayuso's performance in Madrid at least theoretically translate to a national majority, or close to it? I don't think Vox will die either (although, eh, parties in Spain which are not the top two seem oddly fragile), but if a PP majority is a reasonable possibility, then mathematically PP/not Vox also kind of has to be one. (I guess I agree that if PP/PNV is a majority, then PP/Vox would probably also be one, and Vox would realistically be a likelier partner.)