Spanish elections and politics

[Former President tack50]

Honestly, after 40 years of PSOE-A governments I don't think Cs could refuse to prop up PP even if it is alonside Vox.

In any case I don't think they fully ruled it out

[Former President tack50]

Did the Vox break through with working class voters?

Well, I'd have to look at municipality data, but looking at the poorest and richest areas of Seville  they certainly got a lot of votes but still better on richer areas:

Seville

Cerro Amate (poorest): 7.7%
Casco Antiguo (richest): 15.6%
Overall: 12.4%

[Former President tack50]

Am I wrong to classify VOX‘s stunning success today with migrants storming Andalusian beaches and Sanchez‘s open-arms policy ala Merkel ?

Maybe, maybe not. Worth noting that in El Ejido (a town in Almería with a lot of inmigrants and which saw the worst inmigrant riots in Spanish history in 2000) Vox is actually the largest party!

[Former President tack50]

I'm watching the stream of El País. These guys are seriously stunned due to the results. Reminds me of Trump's victory.

For what is worth, the El País poll tracker gave PP+Cs+Vox a 4% chance of a majority and a hard ceiling of 6 seats for Vox (everything beyond that at 0.1% chance)

[Former President tack50]

Also something interesting to note: PACMA got almost 2% of the vote. If this holds until May 2019 they might be able to get 1 MEP

[Former President tack50]

Yeah, it seems PSOE+Cs is out of the question even if it magically added up (it doesn't currently, short by 1 seat).

In any case if this happens at the national level I guess it's time to pack my bags and move to Portugal ^/s

[Former President tack50]

Rivera said C's would present its own candidate for the investiture vote, rather than to support the PP candidate. Is this just election night talk, or could C's refuse to support the PP candidate?

It would be destroyed electorally. They will ultimately support the pp

Yeah, only possibility I see (and it's essencially impossible) it's a "Borgen-like" scenario where Cs' candidate wins, propped up by PSOE and a Podemos abstention.

[Former President tack50]

El Confidencial has a handy map by municipality

https://www.elconfidencial.com/elecciones-andalucia/2018-12-02/los-resultados-de-las-elecciones-andaluzas-del-2-d-municipio-a-municipio_1675162/

As you can see, since PSOE won the election technically, there's a lot of red still. Cs apparently performed well near Cádiz of all places. The right wins in the Mediterranean coast which is its stronghold. Vox wins only one municipality, but it's actually a decently large one (El Eijdo)

[Former President tack50]

So the desecration of Franco's grave and taking in hundreds of African immigrants on boats will remain the only two achievements of this government?

Well, the largest achievement will probably be the no confidence vote itself as well as overseeing the rise of the far right.

But yeah, the Sánchez government looks like it will be the least consequencial government in Spanish history, only rivaled by Calvo-Sotelo's one (1981-1982). Depending on when he calls the elections, it might also be the shortest (Calvo-Sotelo lasted slightly under 2 years)

[Former President tack50]

Yeah, it's not completely unprecedented at an EU scale but it's certainly not ideal. On the other hand there isn't really an alternative other than PSOE-Cs-AA or a grand coalition (PSOE-PP). Neither of which is happening.

Then again I think cordon sanitaires are undemocratic. Andalusians have voted for a PP-Cs-Vox government and that's what they should get.

[Former President tack50]

Then again I think cordon sanitaires are undemocratic. Andalusians have voted for a PP-Cs-Vox government and that's what they should get.

The efectiveness of the cordon sanitaire is highly debatable, but in no way that policy is undemocratic. Andalusians voted the composition of the regional parliament, not for specific coalition agreements. In any case, Cs will have to show what is its true nature. Oranges claim that Macron is their reference. VOX leader Santiago Abascal is a great admirer of Marine Le Pen. The visions of Macron and Le Pen are antithetical. Where is Cs actually?

Oh, I'd actually be in favour of an alternative coalition if one was actually viable (say, PSOE+Cs with an overall majority).

But right now the only possibility would be either PSOE+Cs+AA (probably with Marín as premier) or a grand coalition, neither of which is happening. Though I'll admit I like the "Borgen-like" PSOE+Cs+AA with Marín as premier but I fear that would be worse for Spain in the long run, emboldening Vox and PP.

In any case it seems clear to me that they'll do a deal with Vox. I wonder what Manuel Valls has to say about it.

[Former President tack50]

Also, while his prediction was complete garbage (then again so were the polls), Kiko Llaneras and El País have published a detailed analysis of Vox's voting patterns. Some are more surprising than others but they are all interesting especially when compared to similar parties elsewhere in Europe:

The most important factor seems to be the % of non-EU inmigrants, with Vox performing extremely well where there is a lot of inmigration



There's also a weaker correlation between population density and Vox voters, where Vox performs better in densely populated areas (ie cities). This seems reversed compared to other right wing populists like say AfD.



There's also a correlation between income and Vox votes. I guess Vox voters are not exactly "economically anxious"



However, there doesn't seem to be a correlation at all between unemployment and Vox votes



Finally, Vox certainly stole votes from the right and not the left. They performed better in areas where PP and Cs did well in 2015, not in areas where PSOE and Podemos/IU did well



https://elpais.com/politica/2018/12/03/actualidad/1543829876_200181.html

By the way, the official website for the election actually has precinct data available, a rarity for Spanish elections! So if anyone wants to try to mess around with it, the option is there I guess

https://www.resultadoseleccionesparlamentoandalucia2018.es/Mesas

[Former President tack50]

As for the other 'barons', they'll have to pass the elections in May 2019.

I am not sure what you mean by that.

Pretty much that they have to prove themselves and get reelected in 2019. There are now 6 PSOE premiers, 1 of them anti-Sánchez back on the day and only 1 pro-Sánchez:

Pro-Sánchez:
Francina Armengol (Balearic Islands)

Anti-Sánchez:
Guillermo Fernández Vara (Extremadura)
Emiliano García Page (Castille-La Mancha)
Ximo Puig (Valencia)
Javier Lambán (Aragón)
Javier Fernández (Asturias, retiring)

So other than Javier Fernández, who is retiring, most other high profile Sánchez challengers are up for reelection in 2019. Then again it's worth noting that all but Puig are in traditional PSOE stronholds at the regional level. My ratings for each one before and after the Andalusian election (and they might actually be generous!):

Balearic Islands: Tossup->Lean PP
Extremadura: Likely PSOE->Tossup
Castille-La Mancha: Lean PSOE->Lean PP
Asturias: Safe PSOE->Lean PSOE
Valencia: Lean PSOE->Tossup
Aragón: Lean PP->Likely PP

(reminder I had Andalucia as Safe PSOE so yeah)

Looks pretty ugly, but I don't think there will be a divide between Sánchez supporters and opponents. Díaz was unpopular because of that but I don't think this applies to the rest of the premiers

[Former President tack50]

Actually, I don't think Carmena nor Colau have a high chance of being reelected. In fact I'd actually argue Colau is more of a favourite than Carmena because of Barcelona being a lot more friendly than Madrid and the more fractured council which means she might have an easy time emerging as a "consensus candidate" as she can do deals with pretty much everyone. (something like 25% for Carmena and 35% for Colau)

IMO it will depend a lot on how well they can isolate themselves from national tendencies, as Carmena is a popular mayor in hostile territory while Colau is an unpopular mayor in friendly territory.

As of now I do think Cs will take Madrid while ERC will take Barcelona (though this one is a bit less clear to me)

In any case of the high profile Podemos mayors I'd say only Kichi in Cádiz is favoured. Maybe the 2 ones in Galicia (A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela) though those are less known. Finally Zamora is a big question mark as it's rural enough (63k people) that personally knowing the mayor does a lot and local issues will be more prominent.

[Former President tack50]

Worth noting that in Spain the more sough you go, the more reversed the left/right axis is. In places like Galicia you can certainly see your standard cities=left; rurals=right scheme. However in much of Spain this is revresed, especially in the South (Andalucía, Extremadura, parts of Castille-La Mancha)

The most common explanation is that in these areas there's a minority of wealthy landowners (like for example the famous Duke of Alba) and a lot of rural poor peasants who vote left.

There are also areas where there isn't a rural/urban divide at all, Aragon being probably the best example.

Finally, in "nationalist" regions (Catalonia/Basque Country) while the divide is still there, it isn't on left/right issues but on nationalism/unionism issues. Unionist parties perform great in Barcelona and Bilbao's suburbs and metropolitan area (also smaller cities like San Sebastián or Tarragona) and border areas which are more "culturally Spanish" or different from Catalonia/Basque Country (southern Álava, Aran Valley). Meanwhile secessionists perform best in rural areas.

Also, Sánchez has backtracked and he will now bring a budget to parliament. Before he claimed that he wouldn't even attempt that. He also seems to be attacking secessionists slightly. I don't think he really expects it to pass so maybe he is trying to prepare the country for early elections?

[Former President tack50]

Apparently Vox has released a list of requests to support a government. I imagine this will be further discussed in government negotiations but it's a starting point and gives an idea of their priorities:

1: Close down the regional government owned TV broadcaster: Canal Sur

2: Return healthcare to the central government

3: Return education to the central government

4: Audit and replace the infamous "Plan of Agrarian Employment" (PER), often seen as a waste of money and corruption by the right

5: Study the abolition of "superflous government organizations"

6: Defending hunting and bullfighting

7: Repealing gender related laws, including the gender violence law of 2004

8: Repealing the "Historic Memory law", which has to do with how the Civil War is treated

9: Repealing the inheritance tax

10: Reducing income tax

http://cadenaser.com/ser/2018/12/05/politica/1544034782_431367.html

Worth noting that proposals 1-3 go against Andalucia's statute of autonomy and would require a 2/3 majority, approval by the Congress of Deputies and a referendum. In other words, unachievable.

5,6,9 and 10 are doable by the regional government easily. Probably 4 as well.

Finally, proposals 7 and 8 could only repeal any extra Andalusian laws, but not the national laws passed in 2005 and 2006.

[Former President tack50]

Yes and no. As you say, in Madrid and Barcelona the city center proper leans left quite hard. In Madrid Centro is probably one of the most left wing districts alongside Villa de Vallecas and Puente de Vallecas (low income districts in Madrid's periphery)

Same in Barcelona where Ciutat Vella is the most pro-Podemos district though I'm unsure of what district is the most left wing overall because of the independence debate now being the main factor in Catalan politics.

As for other cities, it seems to vary, but the city center even when it leans right it's not always the most right wing part of town and there are other exceptions than Madrid and Barcelona. Here are several examples from the 2015 local elections:

Valencia





You can clearly see PP performing well in Ciutat Vella though it's not its strongest district, that seems to be the 19th century Eixample, Pla del Real and Extramurs.

Bilbao





This one is quite weird in that the district that contains the old medieval city center is actually Ibaiondo-Casco Viejo which is actually a very left wing stronhold! (with strong results for Podemos and Bildu).

I imagine Abando is the more bourgeois 19th century city expansion looking at the strong PNV and especially PP results? Taking a quick look at Wikipedia it seems Abando used to be its own town and then got engulfed by Bilbao in its 19th century expansion.

Zaragoza





Worth noting that the Zaragoza municipal boundary includes several rural areas. In the map, the red and "light green" districts are considered mostly rural while the blue ones are considered urban districts.

In any case you can see that the strongest results for PP came in the Centro and Casco Antiguo districts (and the peripheral Distrito Sur). I imagine the same pattern holds here, where Casco Antiguo is the old medieval city center while Centro is the "new city center" from the 19th century.

Interestingly you can see a Madrid-like pattern with Podemos performing well in Casco Antiguo, but not in Centro.

Alicante



Here, District 1 seems to correspond to the old city center as it has the town hall and the port. And this time, its a massive PP stronghold with its best results city wide.

Badajoz

Finally, a smaller city. And here again the city center does give PP great results

[Former President tack50]

Some of the maps in the previous post are mine

Oh, I didn't know that! Great maps!

[Former President tack50]

So I recently moved to Spain and wanted to explore the electoral trends in a few places. Is there a site that lets me see results by district? Or one that has interactive maps. The Infoelectoral site doesn't have a breakdown by district. Any help would be appreciated!

What do you mean by district? If you mean by constituency/province there are certainly several. Historia electoral is a particularly good resource in my opinion with a lot of information, though it doesn't have maps at all.

http://www.historiaelectoral.com/es.html

If you mean by municipality though, those are much much harder to find. El Mundo has maps available for the last 3 general elections (2011, 2015, 2016):

https://www.elmundo.es/grafico/espana/2016/06/27/57709ec1e5fdea870f8b4618.html

Alternatively, Público has a database with results by municipality for all general elections, but no maps other than at the provincial level:

https://especiales.publico.es/resultados-elecciones/generales/2000/

(replace 2000 with the appropiate election year)

Finally there's this resource at the Ministry of the Interior which has apparently information by municipality and even allegedly by precinct! It has information for every kind of election except for regional elections (for those you'd have to go to the appropiate site from each regional government) However it's harder to use since it doesn't give percentages and has huge Excel spreadsheets. Still, if you are familiar with statistics programs you should be able to do a lot with it.

http://www.infoelectoral.mir.es/infoelectoral/min/areaDescarga.html?method=inicio

[Former President tack50]

First real poll after the Andalusian election:

Invymark-La Sexta



Seems plausible though I think Vox should be at 10% instead unless there's a lot of dual voting. Podemos is also quite low.

Also the right wing bloc at 53%, which would be a record for any ideological bloc (largest thus far would be PSOE+PCE's 52% in 1982). PSOE+PCE 82' would still beat PP+Cs+Vox today in terms of seats because they are more fragmented while in 82 PSOE got a whopping 48% of the vote. (an even swing would mean 190 seats for PP+Cs+Vox and 178 for PP+Cs alone; while PSOE+PCE got 206 and 202 for PSOE alone)

Similarly, the left wing bloc (PSOE+UP) is at 38%, only marginally higher than PSOE+IU's result in 2011 (36%)

[Former President tack50]

I don't think any of the barons are going to prison any time soon. PSOE is corrupt but most current officials outside Andalucia seem to be clean. Susana Diaz herself is probably clean though her inner circle probably isn't.

Only "barons" that are going to prison are Jose Antonio Griñán and Manuel Chaves (the 2 predecessors to Susana Díaz as Andalusian premier), both for the ERE scandal.

Also, we just got 2 regional polls for Navarra. For some reason that community seems to be getting a lot of polling.

Gizkaer for Euskal Irrati Telebista (the Basque regional government's TV station)





PP right at the 3% hurdle, though they give them 0 seats instead of something like 0-1.

Navarrómetro (apparently the regional equivalent to the nation wide CIS)





I certainly trust the first poll more than the 2nd one (much more reliable), even if it might have a pro-GBai bias (GBai works somewhat as the Navarra brand of PNV, but more left wing?).

In any case, I still think the Navarra government is lean GBai. UPN has a shot of coming back, but I wouldn't count on it.

[Former President tack50]

Honestly, the big impact if it stands alone (instead of going into coalition with Podemos and/or IU), would be 2:

1: Will they get seats in the EU parliamentary election? It's quite easy to get one, they'd need roughly 1.5-1.6% of the vote. If they get even 1 seat that will give them some traction

2: If they choose to contest regional elections, how well will they do in Asturias? (the home region of Llamazares, I'll assume he runs under Actua and not IU if he runs for reelection, he is still IU-Asturias regional party leader after all).

Still, I can't really see them getting much more than say, 2.5% of the vote and 1 seat.

[Former President tack50]

Other poll

El español

Psoe:25.5%
PP:21.6%
Cs:19%
UP:17.8%
Vox:8.5%

Vox,pp, cs=49.1%

This poll is the only one that does not give an absolute majority to the right. Quite strange since the percentage of right-wing votes largely wins to the left

To be fair, considering the percentages for each party I imagine Vox is now acting partially as a spoiler for the right, kind of what IU traditionally did for the left. They are getting 9%, but with that percentage they are probably getting around 20 seats.

The best example I can put is the 1996 election, where Aznar became PM even though the combined right was defeated by the combined left 39-48. Then again that was in an era where PP-nationalist deals weren't exactly impossible, with Aznar "speaking Catalan behind closed doors".

But even if you add CiU and PNV (or CC) to the right's total it still loses 45-48.

For another, more recient example, in the 2015 general election the combined left (PSOE+Podemos+IU) beat the combined right (PP+Cs) 46-43, but the combined right got slightly more seats (163 for PP+Cs; 161 for PSOE+Podemos+IU)

[Former President tack50]

That seems a pretty huge bump for Vox...?

To be honest, considering the Andalusian election results, it might actually be too low! Then again I don't think an "even swing" would be accurate, the Andalusian election also had particular circumstances.

Still, I'd say Vox is probably just shy of double digits at this point.

[Former President tack50]

This is something I saw today on the news that I found interesting.

Apparently the association of journalists covering parliamentary activity gave prizes to congressmen (also senators and MEPs) on the following categories.

Best speaker (probably the most important one): Ana Oramas (CC)
Runner ups: Joan Tardá (ERC), Albert Rivera (Cs), Pablo Iglesias (Podemos)

Best government critic: Pablo Casado (PP)
Runner-ups: Rafael Hernándo (PP), Albert Rivera (Cs), Beatriz Escudero (PP)

Best opposition critic: Carmen Calvo (Deputy Prime Minister, PSOE)
Runner-ups: Pedro Sánchez (Prime Minister, PSOE); María Jesús Montero (Treasury Minister, PSOE), Aitor Esteban (PNV)

Best press relations: María Jesús Montero (Treasury Minister, PSOE)
Runner ups: Jose Manuel Villegas (Cs), Ione Belarra (UP), Carles Campuzano (PDECat)

Best press critic: Adriana Lastra (PSOE)
Runner ups: Dolors Montserrat (PP), Rafael Mayoral (UP), Carles Mulet (Compromís)

Most active congressman: Yolanda Díaz (UP)
Runner ups: María Jesús Moro (PP), Oskar Matute (EH Bildu), Ángeles Álvarez (PSOE)

Best internet presence: Melisa Rodríguez (Cs)
Runner ups: Gabriel Rufián (ERC), Ignacio Cosidó (PP), Pablo Iglesias (UP)

Best revelation congressman: Ione Belarra (UP)
Runner ups: Teodoro García Egea (PP), Marta Sorlí (Compromís), Guillermo Díaz (Cs)

1 million euro parliamentary question: Carlos Floriano Corrales (PP)

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Runner ups: Ignasi Candela Serna (Compromís) (kinda hard to translate I'd say)

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Dolors Montserrat (PP):

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Best senator: Ander Gil (PSOE)
Runner ups: Ignacio Cosidó (PP), Maribel Mora (Podemos), Jon Iñarritu (EH Bildu)

Best revelation senator: Luis Aznar (PP)
Runner ups: Lorena Roldán (Cs), María José López Santana (NCa) Esther Muñoz (PP)

Best European Parliament congressman: Iratxe García (PSOE)
Runner ups: Javier Nart (Ciudadanos), Miguel Urbán (Podemos), Marina Albiol (IU)

http://www.periodistasparlamentarios.org/?p=4928

Interestingly enough, Santa Cruz de Tenerife's delegation actually saw 2 prizes (out of 7 MPs!). Come to think about it, Santa Cruz de Tenerife has some of the best congressmen IMO. Then again that might bias since I see them a lot on regional TV.

I have to say I generally agree with the prizes (at least for the politicians I know). Ana Oramas, even though I hate her party regionally, is probably one of the better speakers in Congress. Small regionalist parties often have good speakers, back in the 00s the tiny Aragonese Chunta had former singer Jose Antonio Labordeta. And of course the Cantabrian Regionalist Party has Revilla as leader, also very good speaker (albeit quite populist).