Spanish elections and politics

[Nanwe]

C's is ideologically closer to To Potami tbh.

[Nanwe]

Why is Rivas-Vaciamadrid a stronghold of the left?

Well it's the next city on the road after Vallecas, which has always been an organized labor stronghold, and also 3/4 of the city seem to be ecologically protected areas, so I guess it's the kind of mushroom suburb that will attract more bobo affluent eco-freindly families than suburbs like Majadahonda or Pozuelo de Alarcon in the West of the agglomeration.

Not quite. Rivas was largely built by housing cooperatives aligned with CCOO and UGT (Spain's main union, associated to the PCE and the PSOE respectively) in the 1990s and as a result, this has resulted in a very left-wing environment. Obviously the closeness to Madrid, the rise of single-family homes and the dominance of the left in the city means that it has attracted, as you say, bobo-style dwellers.

From what I understand however, it is a rather different kind of left (more ecological, social) than the one you find in the red belt south of Madrid (Getafe, Leganes, Parla, etc.).

How long till the PSOE does the honest thing and renames itself the Country Party?

Never? The PP is the real countryside party (also 65+ and uneducated people), the PSOE is more of a 'Southern (Andalucia+Extremadura) Party', even if it's weak in the Andalucian cities (usually, with the exception of Sevilla and Córdoba, all right-wing)

[Nanwe]

Barely a week before the election:

Fernández Díaz appears in tape recordings conspiring against independentist politicians

• The Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, plotted with the directors of the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia, Daniel de Alfonso, to find corruption cases that could be used against the entourage of Oriol Junqueras, leader of ERC.
• According to tape recordging revealed by the newspaper Público, De Alfonso assured the minister that he was lookin for scandals to be used against ERC and to be published by Planeta group's media.
• They also considered releasing scandals against the consellers of the Govern, such as Felip Puig and Francesc Homs, due to an alleged promotion of two sisters-in-law of the Puig.
• REACTIONS: | The director of Anti-Fraud: "We did not conspire, at leas not me. I meet with whomever requests it"

The Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz and the Director of the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia, Daniel de Alfonso, tried to create scandals affecting independentist parties and officials in the wake of the 9-N participative process. According to tape recordings revealed by the Público journal on Tuesday, the two men plotted looking for corruption cases, real or otherwise, that could involve independentists, like Oriol Junqueras', ERC's leader, father or brother, or the two consellers of Convergència, Felip Puig and Francesc Homs.

In the recordings one can hear the long conservation between Fernández Díaz and De Alfonso, in which the latter explains that he's investigating the family circle of Junqueras, searching for scandals to be published through the group Planeta's media. "We are investigating Esquerra's stuff, but it's very weak. That's the truth, Minister", states the director of Antifrau. According to the conservation, the scheming was centred on the allotments of the tripartite [Catalan] government, alleged land deals by Junqueras' father, or the work promotions of family members of the then-Business conseller, Felip Puig.

The published conversations are explicit and full of details and reveal that the minister's focus was on the pro-independence leaders, leaving aside the potential irregular activities of the PSC-controlled municipal administrations. "Because after all, if we also uncover where the PSC governs with a majority and they have received an allotment, they'll say 'Well, of course, but whom are you accusing, the PSC or Esquerra?' We would lose the focus" De Alfonso explains with regards to the various allotments and concessions charged by the company in which Orial Junqueras' brother worked, for several Catalan municipalities.

De Alfonso even argued that it should be him to leak the scandal, to prevent that the UDEF [White Collar Crime Division of the Police] would "lose face". "When I finish talking to you Minister, I'll tell José Ángel [Fuentes Gago], that you know he trusts me. , if you have something, either you two give it to me, or you give it to me. Don't 'burn' yourselves leaking this to the press, because if the UDEF's name keep appearing, it will be tainted because it seems like an attack ... hell, give it to me and I'll leak, I'll research it myself and we'll give it [to the press]" De Alfonso pointed out.

The chief-inspector José Ángel Fuentes Gago has been Eugenio Pino's right-hand man. Pino's Adjoint Operative Division has hosted a secret group of policemen dedicated to search for political corruption cases of the opposition, both amongst Catalan independentism as well as in Podemos. This secret groups's existence was revealed by eldiario.es last November, when the conversations were taped.

The tape recordings published by Público would expand the degree of the actions of the Minister against pro-independence politicians beyond the National Police and would involve the director o the Anti-Fraud Office. According to the aforementioned journal, the conversations were recorded shorty after the 9-N consulta, around the same time that Jordi Pujol confessed to having had a secret bank account abroad.

Reactions have not made themselves wait.

• ERC, CDC and En Comú Podem demand Fernández Díaz's resignation  and denounce suffering "political persecution" (El País)
• Fernández Díaz says that the real conspiracy is that the conversations are released just before the election and denies any wrongdoing (El Diario)
• De Alfonso accuses the PSC of being behind the recordings' leak (La Vanguardia)
• Sánchez, Iglesias and Rivera demand the immediate resignation of Fernández Díaz (El País)

[Nanwe]

Podemos willing to not include Catalonia referendum in potential negotiations with PSOE on forming a govt., El Pais reports citing sources from the party it doesn’t identify.

If they did, it'd be the political demise of that person. For the time being, the referendum is non-negotiable. Everything will be different on Monday though.

[Nanwe]

Would not the relative strength of Podemos-IU provoke C -> PP tactical voting?

That's the aim of the PP campaign: appealing to moderate voters to counter the "populist menace". I guess it would depend on the level of polarization in the following two weeks of electoral campaign, which now is officially open. By the moment polls say that PP and C's retain their shares with little variation.

is it awkward at all for a "People's Party"  to be campaigning against "populism"?

No. Largely because by know popular is completely disassociated with people when you think of the PP. In any case, when parties have 'people's' in their name and aren't socialist, it's usually a reference to the 'good people', the families, the gente de bien, etc. It's a rather Christian democratic kind of name.

[Nanwe]

The day begins. Any guesses on what turnout will be? Polls said similar to December, but I remain sceptical.

[Nanwe]

The problem is that the PP's internal life is dead. There's only Rajoy and his minions. No one would dare - most likely - to replace him. So it's uncertain.

In Euskadi, maybe the PP can get PNV abstention or support in exchange of the PP doing the same after the regional elections there in the fall.

[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.

[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)

[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.

[Nanwe]

Just a comment...
So we can say that the problem of governability of Spain relies essentially on the catalan parties and the catalan problem.

Yes, Catalonia is at the core of the problem. That's something that have stressed Pedro Sánchez in the investiture debate and the Catalan parties. Sánchez to say that an agreement with Podemos would have required the support of ERC or CDC and that was unacceptable for the PSOE. ERC and CDC spokepersons to say that, unless they solve the "Catalan problem", Spain will remain ungovernable.

In fact, they have almost always had the balance of power except in the 2000 and the 2011 elections, so nothing new, except that these parties are now unacceptable. ("infréquentables" in French)

PSOE won majorities in 1982 and 1986. PP in 2000 and 2011.

And technically also in '89, as the absence of the two HB deputies meant the PSOE had the absolute majority.

[Nanwe]

Could you do the same for PSOE? I think they grew up in the urban areas but lost in its traditional strongholds, but a more in-depth picture would be interesting.

[Nanwe]

Variation in percentage of the vote for the PSOE between December 2015 and June 2016

Could you do the same for PSOE? I think they grew up in the urban areas but lost in its traditional strongholds, but a more in-depth picture would be interesting.

They lost seats in Andalucia apparently. Is it because of the infighting?

I think the PSOE loses in Andalusia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha are due to the mobilisation of abstentionists in rural areas who voted for PP. It's possible that there was some small vote transfer from PSOE to PP in those places, or maybe PSOE lost some thousands of voters to abstention. Without provincial analysis of the vote it's hard to tell. The other noticeable thing is a slight PSOE recovery in big cities such as Madrid, Valencia or Zaragoza.  

Thanks! It is really interesting to see, indeed. It's rather surprising that the PSOE improved where it took a beating on December, essentially urban areas and peripheral areas where they are supposed to be very handicapped vis-à-vis C's and Podemos, and then that in the stronghold of the southern rural world they lose. It's surprising because their campaign really wasn't that good, I imagine there must be some effect of unhappy people from Podemos coming back because of the negotiations? Still wouldn't explain Andalucia. But this very bad results have weakened Susana Díaz and paradoxically (despite still losing 5 seats and 100k votes), strengthen Sánchez's position.

[Nanwe]

Spain Prefers Socialist Abstention to Avoid New Vote: Pais Poll
 (Bloomberg) -- Opinion poll show 66% of Spaniards would prefer Socialists to abstain in confidence vote to allow Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to govern rather than hold new elections, El Pais reports.
70% think Rajoy should step aside if doing so would facilitate the formation of a government, newspaper reports, citing poll by Metroscopia

The problem with Metroscopia's poll is that basically the wording is very treacherous.

The question is "If in order to prevent the repetition of the elections, the only alternative would be for the PSOE to abstain and let Rajoy govern in exchange of a series of agreed to reform, what would you prefer?

a) PSOE abstention
b) Electoral repetition

I think that in judicial terms, that's known as called leading the witness.

[Nanwe]

A bit of an (admittedly outdate but useful, data is from 2014) social analysis of how the broad Spanish middle class votes. Data from here: http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/download.html?file=ESS7e02&y=2014, work is not mine, by the way.

(Sectorial) Social Class and Voting in Spain

The graphic below allow us to see which social classes are over- or underrepresented in the various main Spanish political parties. National average is 0.

The PP is over-represented amongst small businessmen and to a lesser degree amongst the group of managers and administrators.

The PSOE is markedly the party of industrial production workers, the social class traditionally linked to the social-democratic parties, but also to the right-wing populist parties in other countries. This group is one of the so-called 'losers of globalisation'.

Podemos particularly attracts the socio-cultural liberal professionals, a category that also tends to be over-represented in the new left or green parties in various European countries.

Ciudadanos is the most voted party by managers and administrators, although it is also over-represented amongst technical professionals.

The results seem to confirm a new division in the salaried middle class between the socio-cultural professionals and the administrators and managers that is also observable in other countrues, like Germany, Great Britain, Sweden or Switzerland. An individual's position in the national work structure seems to be elated to political behaviour in Spain too, although without taking into account the strong duality of the Spanish labour market.

[Nanwe]

New government:
New ministers in italics

President: Mariano Rajoy Brey (PP)
Vice-president. Minister of the Presidency and of Territorial Administrations: Soraya Saénz de Santamaría (loses spokesperson role)
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation: Alfonso Dastis Quecedo. Dastis is the former Spanish representative to the COREPER and former ambassador to the Netherlands.
Minister of Justice: Rafael Catalá.
Minister of Defence: María Dolores de Cospedal. Cospedal is, needless to say, the current general secretary of the PP and former President of Castilla-La Mancha
Minister of Finances and the Civil Service: Cristóbal Montoro
Minister of the Interior: Juan Ignacio Zoido. Former mayor of Sevilla.
Minister of Public Works: Íñigo de la Serna Hernáiz. Mayor of Santander since 2007.
Minister of Education, Culture and Sports. Government Spokersperson: Íñigo Méndez de Vigo (gains spokesperson role).
Minister of Labour and Social Security: Fátima Báñez
Ministry of Energy, Tourism and the Digital Agenda: Álvaro Nadal Belda. Current secretary of state of Economy.
Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing, Food and Environment: Isabel García Tejerina
Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness: Luis de Guindos (gains Industry)
Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality: Dolors Montserrat. Mayor of San Sadurní de Noya, Barcelona. Second spokesperson of the PP in the Congress.

Lots of contuinuism, as it was to be expected from Rajoy. The new ministers seem to be little-known figures, with the exception of Cospedal, who either respond to a technocratic profile (Dastis, Nadal Belda) or to a capacity to be popular despite adverse situation, like keeping the majority in your city even in 2015 (De la Serna Hernáiz) or being a centre-right mayor in Sevilla. So to some degree people who happen to have more conciliatory or wider appeal than the 'regular' PP. Also, although Soraya gains more power, she loses some and her biggest rival in the party (Cospedal) and his allies (Zoido) enter the cabinet. Monteserrat hailing from the PPC makes sure there are still Catalans in the cabinet after the dismissal of Fernández Díaz. It's all about the equilibrium with Rajoy, although the Sorayos have clearly crushed the G-8.

The re-creation of the ministry of Territorial Administrations points towards Rajoy seeking a new approach to Catalonia, which is about damn time. Not to be confused with a referendum, though. The new ministers are all younger (not young though, no Casado, Maroto, Levy, etc.), which I think will help in dealing with Ciudadanos and enforcing the government pact's agenda. It does seem like a more conciliatory government, although who knows, since the new figures are essentially unknown to the population. Perhaps pointing towards a generational renewal of the party, too.

EDIT: Hard to tell whether Guindos or Montoro will be more important as we don't know yet who'll hold the chair of the Delegated Commission for Economic Affairs, which coordinates all the ministries and activity of the economic area.

[Nanwe]

In other, interesting things, El País released an incredibly interesting analysis of the sociological background of all the Spanish ministers since the Suárez I government. According to it, your average Spanish ministry hails from the province of Madrid, is a former civil servant and he (because it's a he ofc) studied Law in university.

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[Nanwe]

Apparently things are slowly but surely progressing in Murcia. Maybe they'll get rid of the allegedly corrupt PP governor there after all?

Then again if they go to new elections either it's a hung parliament and there's another PP+Cs government, even if the governor might be judged for corruption, or it's a PP absolute majority (Murcia is very conservative, PP came within 1 seat of an overall majority)

A PSOE+Cs+Podemos government wouldn't last more than 10 minutes considering how much Cs and Podemos hate each other, and there's no way PSOE+Podemos gets a majority in Murcia

Indeed, the last poll for Murcia, from earlier this month, shows the PP gaining more than C's and PSOE and Podemos getting a lower result than in 2011:

39.1% PP
22.9% PSOE
12.9% C's
12.0% Podemos
 3.6% IU

The poll was made in the beginning of this scandal. Giving a big margin of error, due to Spain's not so accurate polls, could we be seeing parts of the electorate swinging to the PP because they want a more stable government, even thought the electorate knows they are sleaze?

Probably, and I'd argue there was something similar to some extent between December 2015 and June 2016 at the national level(though lower turnout and Podemos losing a big chunk of voters were more important factors)

Interestingly though, Murcia actually reformed their electoral law in 2015, right after the regional election. Now they only have a single at-large constituency with a 3% hurdle, as opposed to the previous 5 constituencies with a 5% hurdle.

With the poll you posted, that would yield this parliament:

PP 20 (-2)
PSOE 12 (-1)
Cs 6 (+2).
Podemos 6 (=)
IU 1 (+1)

So, almost certainly a hung parliament. Back on the day PP could get the 48% or so required for an overall majority, but probably not now, especially not with such a candidate.

Depends on who the PP candidate would be after the election, no? C's won't want to govern with PSOE and Podemos (or IU), but it would be a huge problem for them if they support Pedro Antonio Sánchez. A friend from Murcia says the main reason why Sánchez doesn't go is because Válcarcel (former Murcia President) has too many things to cover that could go public if Sánchez speaks or something along those lines.

[Nanwe]

Could anybody tell me something about the relationship between C's and the far right? I read something about it and found it incredibly weird that any far right person would be attracted to them.

It's not. But like UPyD, the party is not terribly favourable to decentralisation (although C's not as much as UPyD) and in Spain centralisation is very strongly associated to the right-wing, so a party that does not support the status quo but even talks of revoking certain regional powers (like the concierto in Navarra and the Basque Country) is perceived as to the right of the PP in those parts. The exception being Catalonia for obvious reasons.

Also, in the case of Galicia, it did not help that they picked as candidate a women tied to the very right-wing Interconomía/Libertad Digital media group.

In any case, people who you would usually consider far-right are usually loyal voters of the PP, even if they are not too happy to vote for 'Maricomplejines' Rajoy. The PP makes sure not to allow the growth of any party to its right.

[Nanwe]

Why Murcia so conservative? It's right next to Andalusia which is more left leaning and it was a heavily republican area during the Spanish civil war

Andalusia is left-leaning but eastern Andalusia a lot less, particularly Almería and to a lesser extent Granada. In these parts the typical jornalero-señorito divide existing in Sevilla for instance is a lot less prominent, with many more small land owners. The same applies to Murcia. Then there's the fact that Murcia is home to a large number of very religious and conservative groups, like the kikos and the Opus Dei. A Murcia friend likes to joke that Murcia is Spain's Alabama.

Then there's also the issue of how poor the Murcian economy was doing in the 90s - rioting over industrial closures led to people setting the regional assembly on fire - when the PSOE governed and then was followed by the tourism boom from the late 90s on, coinciding with the PP administration, and hence the economic improvement was tied to the PP. Murcia is closer economically and socially to Valencia than Almería, but without the nasty Catalanist-antiCatalanist cleavage.

Yeah. The closest thing to a far-right party is VOX, which came within 1500 votes of getting a seat in the 2014 European Parliament elections (got 1.57% of the vote), but since then they've gone downhill fast. Currently they have 0.2% of the vote and only 22 councillors in town halls (out of more than 67 000).

There might be demand for a party further right than PP, and a poll found out that if former Prime Minister Aznar (a Rajoy critic from the right) founded his own party and ran again he would get up to 15% of the vote and 51 seats. (coming in 4th; behind PP, PSOE and Podemos, but above Cs).

True, but even then it would not be a right-wing populist party as we see them in Europe, but rather a hard-right party, like a tougher, nastier, more Thatcherite version of the PP, not a Front National.

[Nanwe]

So something major just happened. The judges of the Gürtel case (corruption scandal linked to the illegal financing of the PP in Valencia and Madrid and possibly national levels) have called on Rajoy to come and declare as a witness.

[Nanwe]

I'm afraid I can't see the image.

However, I've designed a couple of alternate electoral maps myself.

Spain 2016 election: http://imgur.com/KqCnGOB
Spain 2015 election: http://imgur.com/vFLPtyK
Spain 2011 election: http://imgur.com/AvabjRK
Madrid 2015 election: http://imgur.com/Hin7Q5m
Catalonia 2015 election: http://imgur.com/nfwxiCo
Catalonia 2012 election: http://imgur.com/Ai91tQK

People's Party proposal for electoral reform in Madrid to shift to a MMP system: http://imgur.com/kazeImb

[Nanwe]

People's Party proposal for electoral reform in Madrid to shift to a MMP system: http://imgur.com/kazeImb

How likely is electoral reform to pass?

Not at all. It was proposed back in 2014 when the PP had a majority, and the opposition rejected it so hard, they haven't proposed it again, at best hinted at it under Cifuentes. If there's a reform of the Asamble de Madrid, it'd be open the lists up, lower the threshold from 5% to 3% and reduce its size from around 120 to around 100.

[Nanwe]

People's Party proposal for electoral reform in Madrid to shift to a MMP system: http://imgur.com/kazeImb

How likely is electoral reform to pass?

Didn't know about Madrid, but many other places are trying to pass reforms. Murcia passed a reform as part of the PP+Cs deal (went from 5 constituencies to a single at-large one; with the hurdle being reduced from 5% to 3%)

Yeah, but the thing is that Madrid already pretty much has perfect proportionality, and lowering the threshold is only a priority for parties that barely failed to meet it (aka IU, maybe UPyD). As for the open lists, I'm not sure it can be done without changing the LOREG, which is not really up to the comunities beyond proposing a law to Congress - which would then actually have to pass.

Another place where electoral reform is being discussed is in the Canary Islands, where the minor islands get as much of a voice as the 2 large ones even though they only have 20% of the people. However parties can't agree on a reform so I don't have much hope for that one. A proposal was to include 10 extra at large legislators to make the system more proportional, but PP and NC rejected that. Others want to keep the system as is (maybe lowering the hurdles from 6 to 3% regional and from 30 to 15% in an island). NC proposed increasing the number of legislators in GC/TF from 15 to 22, and in FV from 7 to 8.

Interesting. I can understand that in an archipelago the territorial element it's important, since each island has rather clearer interestes, but that seems excessive. I suppose you can either expand Parliament (easy to do, but unpopular) or create as you say an at-large constituency (politicall hard to do, popular-ish). The issue is that at the ed of the day, people don't care too much about electoral law. And when they do it's always the same of say that Spain should be a single constituency of 350 deputies, which imho is a ludicrous idea, or worse those on the hard-right/far-right like Jimenez Los Santos or Vox who want FPTP.

At the national level I also remember electoral reform being discussed but I don't think it will pass unless the 4 main parties agree on a big constitutional reform package, which isn't likely to happen.

Yeah, any realistic reform of the LOREG beyond the simplest thing (closed > open lists; expanding Congress to its constitutional maximum of 400 deputies), requires a constitutional amendment, like to do away with the province as the basic electoral unit, which is a ridiculous requirement designed to favour the UCD (!!). It could be removed but since Podemos insists on putting every single amendment (even one as unconsequential as this one) to a vote in referendum and the PP would oppose it and it has a majority in the Senate...

I could always imagine a compromise where the provincial unit gets removed, and in exchnage the law for local elections is changed to a semi-parliamentary system where the mayor is elected by a two-round vote separate from the local council. But since atm Spain has a government but no opposition (mess in PSOE, Podemos failing at institutional politics and C's trying to be both government and opposition party simultaneously)

[Nanwe]

Well it wasn't worthless. It sank Hernández Mancha's career as leader of AP. Let's see what happens to Iglesias