Spanish elections and politics

[Former President tack50]

We finally got our first polls after the new government was unveiled. And PSOE gets its first leads in a poll for the first time since 2015!

NC Report for La Razón

PP: 25.5% (105-108)
PSOE: 24.9% (96-99)
Cs: 21.0% (69-72)
UP: 16.7% (50-53)

ERC: 3.1% (10-11)
PDECat: 1.5% (5-6)
PNV: 1.2% (6)
EH Bildu: 0.8% (2)
CC: 0.3% (1)

GAD3 for ABC

PSOE: 28.8% (118)
PP: 25.6% (101)
Cs: 21.1% (70)
UP: 13.1% (34)

ERC: 3.2% (13)
PDECat: 1.6% (5)
PNV: 1% (5)
EH Bildu: 0.8% (3)
CC: 0.3% (1)

Invymark for La Sexta

PSOE 25,1%
PP 23,7%
C’s 22,2%
UP 17,3%

[Former President tack50]

Well, we now have a date for the PP congress which will elect a new party leader: the congress will take place on the 20th and 21st of July.

And in a very interesting move for PP, there will actually be a primary! Granted it's technically non-binding; but just like in PSOE's case I don't think the party leaders will overturn the results even if they somehow lost to some insurgent (which I definitely don't see happening in PP).

Not only that, but it will be a somewhat complicated 2 round system. In round 1 all PP party members vote. They get 2 votes: one to elect the delegates to the PP party congress (kind of similar to US primaries, except the delegates are unbound?) and in the 2nd they vote directly for party leader. There are 3 ways to win in round 1 with the vote of the PP base:

Win more than 50% of the vote
Win in more than half of Spain's provinces
Beat your closest rival by at least 15%

If no candidate fulfills at least one of those requirements, the final vote between the 2 candidates will be decided in PP's party congress by the delegates, though I guess the runner up will probably drop out.

Considering the rules, I'd say it would be hard to get a "brokered convention" and have the delegates decide. Applying those rules to PSOE's primaries, Sánchez would have won in round 1 both times, even in 2014 when he didn't get a majority.

The full calendar is:

June 18-20: Candidates present their candidacies
25th of June: Last day to register to vote for PP party members
5th of July: PP party members vote
20th/21st of July: PP party congress. Delegates vote on the definitive leader (this vote could be simply symbolic with only 1 candidate or an actual decision)

https://www.eldiario.es/politica/proceso-sustituto-Rajoy-votacion-militantes_0_781122215.html




Also, we have a new poll which basically only confirms what we already knew; PSOE is ahead now out of nowhere. Interestingly, "others" is at 3% and all the nationalists and PACMA aren't in others. I  guess this is a very good poll for Vox, they could easily be getting 1 seat and 2% even if this poll doesn't show them separately

Celeste-Tel for eldiario.es

PSOE: 25.8% (102-105)
PP: 24.3% (98-102)
Cs: 21.1% (65-68)
UP: 17.4% (50-54)

ERC: 3.0% (11)
PDECat: 1.5% (6)
PNV: 1.2% (6)
EH Bildu: 0.9% (2-3)
CC: 0.3% (1)
BNG: 0.2% (0)

PACMA: 1.3% (0)
Others: 3%

This poll should almost certainly show something along the lines of "Vox: 1.7% (1)" but it just groups them on others IMO. Unless fringe stuff like PCPE, UPyD or Zero Cuts-the Greens are out of nowhere polling in the high 0.x% which I don't see happening.



Finally, the infamous ship stranded in the Mediterranean after both Italy and Malta rejected it will go to Spain. I wonder if this will cause a lot of inmigration now. If it does, the right will probably go up and Vox will have the best opportunity of its lifetime.

[Former President tack50]

Maybe, maybe not. There might not even be a backlash against the left at all! (though I'll admit this is unlikely). Maybe Cs or PP start campaigning against inmigrants and get those votes. Or maybe Vox does rise after all and starts actually registering in polls.

Worth noting that as of now, inmigration is only a top 3 worry for about 3% of Spaniards. Back when inmigration was at its peak (2006-2007) it was a top 3 priority for about 35% of Spaniards. And yet there was no far right populist party rising in the mid 00s.

Closest thing was PxC, a local party in Catalonia which managed some local success and came close to getting seats in 2010, but fizzled out once independence became the number 1 issue there.

However if literally everywhere else in Europe is any indication, they will rise unless Cs/PP manage to steal their voters. If Spain gets a migrant crisis (with such boats coming every week or maybe every few days), and people get worried about it, I could see them getting around 4% of the vote and 4-5 seats but that's incredibly unlikely. Most likely they might rise slightly in the popular vote (say, up to 2.5%) but still be stuck at 1 seat or possibly 2.

[Former President tack50]

The Sánchez government isn't even 2 weeks old and it already has a scandal!

Màxim Huerta, the minister of Culture and Sport (and already quite controversial for his tweets about sport) had resigned this afternoon after it was discovered that he was found guilty of tax evasion in the past and had to pay 365 000€ for it.

He initially refused to resign but after several declarations from both Sánchez about corrupt politicians, critics from all parties and the like happened, he had to resign.

This almost certainly makes Màxim Huerta the shortest lived minister in Spanish history XD

[Former President tack50]

Well, 2 news items today.

First of all, Albert Rivera wants Spain to have a 3% national threshold for general elections, basically as a "stop secessionists" measure. Of course in practice it would be ineffective as they'd simply run in a coalition like they already do in EU parliament elections. But I guess it's noteworthy.

Worth noting that the right wing coalition would have always entered parliament (in fact, CiU alone would have entered parliament several times), and the left wing coalition only sometimes.

It would actually do more harm to small national parties. So Vox and PACMA would have an even harder time getting seats. And historically 3 parties would have dropped out: UPyD (2008), CDS (1982) and FN (1979).

The 2nd news is that we now have our first declared candidate for the PP leadership election: José Ramón García Hernández, MP for Ávila and someone I didn't know until today. No idea if he'll even be allowed on the ballot but there he is.

Former minister of foreign affairs, Jose María Margallo is also collecting the required endorsements to run, but he officially hasn't declared if he will finally run or not. He has said that he wants to stop fmr. deputy PM Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría at all costs though (they seem to have a very bad relation)

Anyways, Jose Ramón García is a dark horse candidate. That can be a good (a clean candidate) or a bad thing (unknown). Zapatero was also an unknown MP from Leon in 2000 so who knows.

Margallo would be a good candidate, iirc he was one of the ministers with the highest approval ratings. His only problem would be age, he is quite old at age 73.

[Former President tack50]

More movement in PP's leadership election.

Pablo Casado, MP for Ávila and one of PP's young faces and one of the better known MPs has decided to run for party leader. This is slightly surprising but of the 3 candidates thus far he is probably the one with the best chance.

However, a more interesting turn comes from regional president of Galicia Alberto Núñez Feijoo, who has decided not to run! He was thus far considered the frontrunner for the leadership election. Now that he is not running, I wonder what will the effect be.

[Former President tack50]

Yup, both Santamaría and Cospedal have declared today their intention to run. Assuming everyone who declared eventually gets in the ballot, this will be the most contested leadership election in history, with at least 6 candidates. Thus far the record is the 2000 PSOE leadership election, which had 4 candidates.

Also assuming that one of the frontrunners eventually wins, this will also be the first time a major party is led by a woman and barring a huge PP collapse, the best result for a woman in an election (thus far the record is Rosa Diez's 4.7% so whoever wins will beat that).

[Former President tack50]

Is the PNV/EAJ pro-Basque independence or more of a "Basque interests" party?

Simultaneously both and neither at the same time. A big and somewhat hilarious example is that the same day they signed the budget deal with Rajoy's government in Madrid, they also signed a declaration in favour of the right to decide with Bildu back in the Basque Country.

It really depends. I think their position on independence is something like "would be nice but now is not the time". They are clearly in favour of the right to decide (ie a referendum) though I don't think they would actively push for independence unless they felt threatened or something.

It also depens on who is in charge of PNV. Right now Urkullu is a moderate, but former leader Ibarretxe was a lot more pro-independence, actively pushing for the Basque Country to become a "free associated state". That was defeated in the Spanish Congress by a landslide margin: 29-313, with only Basque/Catalan/Galician nationalists voting in favour; IU splitting between abstaining and no; and everyone else voting no.

In fact up until the Catalan conflict, the Ibarretxe plan was the strongest pro-independence challenge in Spain, though it went nowhere near as far (Ibarretxe never dared to disobey court orders like Mas and Puigdemont for example)

[Former President tack50]

About the PP leadership election, I'd say taht only 66k is an utter failure on PP's part. Remember PP claimed an 850k membership.

But even if we forget about the 850k figure, 66k is extremely small. I wouldn't consider Podemos' leadership election as comparable since joining Podemos is free and over the internet while for any of the other parties you have to pay.

But remember, PP's membership fee is only 20€ a year. Compare that to PSOE's 60€ a year or Cs' 120 € a year. So you'd expect PP's membership to be certainly larger than PSOE and especially Cs. And yet it's only 1/3 of PSOE's membership and only around 3 times that of Cs.

In fact, to get an idea, around 23k people are elected PP politicians (local councillors, MPs, etc). Which means that about 1 in 3 voters will be actual politicians.

I don't think that means a more extreme politician though. Remember that the PSOE primaries had extremely high turnout and they still elected the more "extreme" candidate (Sánchez) not the establishment one (Díaz).

In fact since 1/3 will be elected politicians, I guess that will give a small boost to establishment candidates (Santamaría, probably Cospedal) and might make things harder for the ones relying in the party base (Casado).

[Former President tack50]

What for would one have party membership if he is not some sort of elected politician, even such as some small town mayor or county leader?

Well, plenty of reasons. You could be someone who isn't an elected politician but wants to become one in the future. Or you could simply be a party hack and want to support your party by paying the membership dues and taking part in its internal politics.

[Former President tack50]

While polling for leadership elections is almost always extremely inaccurate, and Okdiario is a worthless pamphlet, they are the only ones who have even tried to poll the PP leadership election so here's their final poll (election is due for tomorrow). Worth noting that this a poll of PP councillors and local elected officials which are likely to votee (then again of the 1200 calls only 243 replied).



Which means Cospedal in the lead and Casado and Santamaría battling for 2nd, though it's between the margin of error for all 3. Margallo well behind.

The only other poll (this time of PP voters, so including a lot of people who won't vote in the leadership election):

Santamaría: 45,2%
Casado: 22.2%
Cospedal: 11.9%
Margallo: 6.4%
José R. Gª Hernández: 1.2%
Elio Cabanes: 0.1%

I guess one of the 3 frontrunners will be eliminated by the PP base, with the other 2 battling in the PP congress.

My own prediction is that Casado will be well ahead, with Santamaría and Cospedal battling for 2nd with Santamaría narrowly getting in 2nd place. In the PP congress all bets are off, though the larger the Casado victory, the easier it will be for him to be elected.

[Former President tack50]

According to ABC, with 44% of the vote in:

Casado: 11176
Santamaria: 8822
Cospedal: 7290

They also showed the results for the other 3, but without telling who is who. In any case, their results are 348, 355 and 72 votes. Terrible result for Margallo, especially if Joserra (who is completely unknown actually beats him or is anywhere close)

[Former President tack50]

Santamaria finally wins

Santamaria: 21500
Casado: 19900
Cospedal: 15000

[Former President tack50]

I am not sure if I should ask this question because somehow I have feeling that I have already asked that question but:


How UPyD is currently doing? Are they relevant anywhere?

I don't think anyone has asked about UPyD reciently so I guess it's a good question.

Apparently after the 2015 election (when they lost all seats and got 0.8% of the vote) their leader Andrés Herzog resigned and was replaced by MP in the Basque Country's regional assembly Gorka Maneiro. They also debated whether the party should close down for good but apparently the dissolution proposal was rejected.

In any case, Maneiro performed even worse than Herzog, getting only 0.21% of the vote; coming even behind "Zero Cuts: The greens", a very fringe party, and slightly ahead of Vox.

Maneiro was replaced now by Cristiano Brown, city councillor in the town of Las Rozas (Madrid). Interestingly, Brown is actually an inmigrant from Brasil who came to Spain when he was 9 years old.

So yes, UPyD still exists. However, I'd say their future will be very similar to that of CDS back in the 90s. The party loses all its seats after the party founder (Adolfo Suarez /Rosa Diez) resigns after an abysmal local election (1991/2015); however the party rejects dissolution and stays in zombie form for 15 years.

I seriously doubt UPyD will ever be relevant again, except maybe at the local level. They have a very, very slim chance of holding 1 MEP if Maite Pagazaurtundua (the only of the 4 MEPs who still belongs to UPyD and isn't an independent) somehow manages to hold her seat but I don't think that's likely. If UPyD somehow managed to hold that 1 MEP then maybe the party could be revived but it's a small chance.

According to Politico’s article, Casado seems to be the more “liberal” one. Is this true?

Well, in the European sense yes. Ie he wants tax cuts and the like. He apparently wants to cut income tax (having a top bracket below 40%) and corporate tax. Liberal in this sense basically means economic liberal, wanting low taxes, cuts and privatization.

While the PP primaries have been extremely light on policy, I guess the main divide is that Santamaría is the more "technocratic" and moderate candidate and closer to Rajoy, while Casado is the more "ideological" candidate, much closer to the ideas of Aznar.

[Former President tack50]

The german regional court has rejected sending Puigdemont under rebellion, they only allow sending him under public fund misuse charges. The Spanish courts have rejected extradition under those conditions. Llarena's only exit would be to appeal to European courts. In any case, it seems Puigdemont is safe and won't go to jail.

Also, 2 more polls. One of them actually includes results both with Casado and Soraya as PP leaders, confirming what we already knew (Casado makes Vox go lower)

Top position





Simple Lógica

PSOE: 27,2%
Cs: 26,0%
PP: 18.7%
UP: 17,3%
Others: 10,8%

[Former President tack50]

The decision of the German court was predictable. The arguments of Llarena are unconvincing. Neither Puigdemont nor the Catalan politicians jailed in Spain can be charged with rebellion because what they did is illegal, but it wasn't an attempt to overthrow government by violent means.

Does any other pollster apart from Sociometrica and Simple Lógica predict results for the Vox party?  It's clear that Casado has more appeal with right-wing and far-right voters, those scoring 7-8 and 9-10 in the CIS ideological scale. However, Santamaría should have a better appeal with centre-right voters (5-6) and the battleground for mainstream parties is always on the centre. I'd be surprised if a fringe party with no clear leadership like Vox makes substantial progress, although nothing is impossible. Maybe Casado will have to tone down some of his right-wing stances in case he wins the leadership contest. I think the undercover support of Feijoó and Cospedal makes him the favourite.

Yes, the rebellion charges make no sense whatsoever. There was 100% no violence (or at least no more violence than say, in your usual general strike). The sedition charges would make more sense to me (and even then I'm unsure if those would be accurate but certainly more than rebellion).

In fact, I'd say there's a non negligible (but very small) chance of Junqueras and the rest actually being declared innocent, at least of the rebellion charges (probably not of public fund misuse though).

Also, I wonder if they will eventually be pardoned (whether by Sánchez or another future PM). Barrionuevo (GAL) was pardoned by Aznar and Armada (23F coup) was pardoned by González so following the "controversial pardons" precedent, in theory the next PP/Cs prime minister should pardon the Catalan government. Of course that will never happen, but still a pardon wouldn't be the most controversial thing in the world.

As for Vox and pollsters, it seems that the following pollsters have shown results for Vox in the past:

JM&A (Público; technically not a poll)
Sociométrica (El Español)
Top Position
GAD3 (ABC) (no seats but 1.1% of the vote)

They've also appeared in an NC Report (La Razón) poll for Madrid regional elections (2.8%, no seats).

As for leadership, I wouldn't say Vox has bad leadership, at least not for a party of that size (just compare them to PACMA for example). They seem to have 3 somewhat high profile people: Santiago Abascal (party president), Javier Ortega-Smith (secretary general, leading Vox's accusation of the former catalan government) and probably the best known being Antonio Ortega Lara (very high profile ETA victim, was kidnapped for 532 days).

Though their ceiling is extremely low, there's no way they'll get above like 2% and 1-2 seats.

[Former President tack50]

In the Top Position polls, did they release figures for PDeCAT, PNV, and EH Bildu?

Nope. In fact one of the weirdest things about that poll is the 1% drop in the "others" group between Soraya and Casado. I see absolutely no reason for nationalist voters to switch depending on the PP leader.

Not to mention that 9.2% or even 8.2% is slightly too high if ERC isn't there. In 2016 the "others" got roughly 7% of the vote. Maybe they are counting blank ballots there as well? Alternatively, maybe there's a PACMA surge as well?

[Former President tack50]

It's tragic that there's a majority for the left in Catalonia, but they can't enter government together cause of the separatist issue.

There isn't one. Cs+JxCat have a majority as of now (70/135 seats). Of course such a coalition is impossible but still.

[Former President tack50]

The 19th PP party congress has ended, with the slogan "The future of Spain". And in it, Pablo Casado has won, beating Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría

https://www.abc.es/espana/abci-pablo-casado-gana-primarias-y-convierte-nuevo-presidente-pp-201807211353_noticia.html



The final results have been:

Casado 1701 (57%)
Soraya 1250 (42%)
Blank 18
Spoilt 4

[Former President tack50]

Any predictions on what changes with Casado in charge - if it benefits or hurts the PSOE/C's for example?

If the one poll from before testing both candidates in the position of PP leader is accurate (even though there were many flaws as previously pointed out), then Casado will continue to push Cs down; I assume this is due to his very liberal economic stances and anti-Catalan-independence sentiment (apparently said today he wants Tabarnia to be a real thing). He probably won’t gain any large amount of PSOE voters (and could lose more moderate PP voters to them), but he is reducing Vox’s poll numbers, which the poll showed would have risen to its highest levels ever with Soraya Saénz de Santamaría.

Also, I might be horribly off with the comparison (posters from Spain: fix my post if necessary ) but I could see him possibly turning into a Sebastian Kurz-type figure: young, more conservative than many past leaders of his party (but relative to Spain, not Austria of course), and responsible for rejuvenating the party in the eyes of those on the center-right to right wing.

Yup, that's all quite accurate.

Now that Casado is elected, Vox has lost almost all possibilities of getting seats (of course it depends on the 2019 European elections but still it's much more unlikely than a week ago).

Cs will probably go down, most of their new voters went there because of the Catalonia issue. Maybe they'll go back to the center and get moderate PP voters (plus maybe even a few from PSOE) while the hardliners go back to PP but that seems very unlikely to me.

PSOE might go up because of polarization. And UP is probably not affected at all, other than maybe if PSOE goes up UP goes down because "useful voting".

And the Sebastian Kurz comparisons are actually very accurate IMO! The only difference is that while Kurz has to deal with a party to his right (FPÖ), Casado will have to deal with one that is to his left (Cs)

[Former President tack50]

Something that I find interesting is that even though Casado is the supposed heir of Aznar as the more conservative candidate, back on the day Aznar himself was the moderate, bringing PP to the centre and making it competitive with González's PSOE after Fraga's AP was considered too conservative and too close to the Franco regime.

[Former President tack50]

This is sort of unrelated, but I guess I'll post it here.

It's a map of control of the different provincial governments (diputaciones) and equivalents in the rest of Spain I made a while ago for Reddit.



This map is actually mixing several stuff, so here's the explanation I made for the map:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Some of the more interesting stuff is seeing MES controlling almost everything in the Balearic Islands even though the regional government is led by PSOE, PAR managing to hold on in Teruel somehow (they actually came in third, but they are being propped up by PP and PSOE, who came first and second) and of course PSOE provincial governments in Soria and Pontevedra of all places, who have never voted PSOE in any election.

[Former President tack50]

I read somewhere that the diputaciones forales in Euskadi and Navarra are the entities responsible of tax issues (they decide the taxes, collect them and I don't know about spending), so they are really powerful (more than the regional governments).

Yup, the diputaciones forales are technically the ones in charge of handling the money from the concierto económico.  However I'd still say the Basque regional government is a lot more powerful than the diputaciones forales.

Though of course the diputaciones forales are still a lot more powerful than the standard diputaciones and also than the Cabildos/Concells.

[Former President tack50]

Could there be a PSOE-Podemo government?

That poll kinda is a high point for the PSOE, so lets get that out of the way. But if the election was held today? Nope. Podemos on 15% means only about 50 seats, and PSOE needs to get well above 30% to see 125+ seats. Plus about half of the PSOE gains are coming at the expense of Podesmos.

If an election were held today based on the present polling the resulting government would be some combination of PP, PSOE, or C's. Its been like this for a while. If this poll is the resulting government would probably be PSOE around 105-115 plus C's around 62-67.

Of course, once we get on the campaign trail things might change.

From some seat extrapolation's I've seen, this poll would predict a very bare majority (176) between PSOE, Podemos and PNV. That is a viable combination but of course this is a high point

[Former President tack50]

Apparently La Razon did a recient poll on the monarchy and republicanism in Spain. The biggest question: "Should Spain become a republic?" saw a 64% no, 27% yes split; but with a massive age gap: Young people (under 35) support a republic by a 48-40 margin while everyone else supports the monarchy overwhelmingly

The related "Should a referendum on monarchy/republic be called" saw a similar result (32-62 overall) and a similar age gap (young people support it 52-44, everyone else doesn't want a referendum 28-64)

Other questions include the fact that both king Felipe VI and former queen Sofía have very positive approval ratings, while both former king Juan Carlos I and current queen Leticia are underwater (though still far better approval ratings than any politician; for comparison, Pedro Sánchez himself is at a 4/10 and Rajoy was at a 3.3/10 before being ousted)

Here's the full poll





Of course there's no way the monarchy is going away unfortunately; as it's extremely protected in the constitution. Getting rid of the monarchy would require a "severe" constitutional reform of Title II (which requires 2/3 of both chambers, snap elections, 2/3 again and a referendum)

The only time I ever saw a reform of Title II considered at all was when Leticia was pregnant with her second child. Had she had a boy, under current law the heir to the throne would be the boy, not Leonor (the older sibling). The reform would have removed the preference for boys from the constitution. Of course, since she had another girl the reform was shelved as it was unnecessary, but if for some reason she had a son (which probably isn't happening) I guess we would see more debates on the monarchy.