The Transition - 2005 Spanish General Election

[Lumine]

July 2005 - Prime Minister Zabaleta wants a second term for Carlism

Prelude: Carlos Hugo I is crowned as Juan Carlos is forced into exile. Spain goes as a rapid pace of reform and further federalization even as the economy fails to recover from the Panic of 2000, and questions begin to rise on whether Carlism - under a new Prime Minister - has amassed just too much power. Will they win again?

National Parties:

Partido Carlista (PC) - Deeply associated with the new King, the Carlists have retain their status as a party and gathered to fight for a second term under Prime Minister Patxi Zabaleta, a man committed to the Carlist project despite his renunciation of political violence. Attacking the "traditional parties" over blocking a new Constitution - which would enshrine socialist Carlist monarchism -, the PC runs on a platform of gaining a majority to force a new constitution and change the electoral system, double down on autogestionary economic policies and further support for worker-run industries, the dismantling of the Spanish nuclear arsenal, and staunch support for the rising anti-globalization movements from the left. Zabaleta has fought back against accusations that having the King and the PM belonging to the same party would be dangerous, arguing Spain needs Carlism to avoid a right-wing "counter-revolution".

Partido Comunista Unido Español (PCUE) - Once prepared to ditch their long-time leader, Meyer's achievement of becoming the unofficial opposition to the government has prolongued his political life and his hold over PCUE, a party which has become more centralized under his rule. While sharing some of the basic principles of Carlism - such as nationalization policies, nuclear disarmament and federalism -, PCUE has nonetheless combined support for a far more aggressive economic and foreign policy (with full-scale nationalization, withdrawal from the Euro, dramatic pro-union reforms and open alignment with Cuba, Venezuela and others) with a sharp rebuke of Carlism monarchism as "inherently dangerous to the freedom of Spain", arguing that no real socialist movement could embrace the monarchy of Carlos Hugo. As a result, PCUE remains strongly supportive of removing the Carlist King and setting up a full Republic.

Partido Popular (PP) - Exhausted after years of battling between Aguirre and Tocino, the PP civil wars ended just last year as the powerful and experienced regional baron José María Aznar seized control of the party and pledged to end its dark days in opposition, thus giving the PP a renewed sense of purpose. Combative, sardonic, and curiously uncharismatic, Aznar is running more on a message than a detailed platform, namely that Spain needs to "return to the political center" to avoid the dangers of a "Carlist-run left-wing dictatorship". Disavowing to take such a radical road as Tocino took in the 1990's, Aznar's platform nonetheless calls for substantial economic liberalization, social conservative law-and-order politics, support for NATO, Europe and the Spanish nuclear arsenal and a pledge to lead a "responsible government". Aznar has also successfully included the supporters of prince Luis Alfonso in his new PP, the prince himself standing as a candidate.

Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD) - With Becerril and the old UCD guard ousted after an inability to achieve a breakthough, the battle between the liberals and social-democrats has resolved itself in favor of the last ones, with new leader Rosa Díez - known for a combative and pragmatic character - taking the party into what she described as the "radical center". Díez's UCD enters the election supporting Europe and the Euro, social liberalism (and civil liberties), the idea of a Spanish Republic, and a mixed economic agenda of combined support for the welfare-state and the free market, which she has combined with a personal plan to moderately scale-back federalization and return powers over education, healthcare, the environment to the central government, constantly attacking the Carlists for "emboldening separatists".

Los Verdes (LV) - Having spearheaded several pro-environmental reforms as the junior partner of the Carlists, Deputy Prime Minister José María Mendiluce is back again to build on the record of the Greens in government, and to cement the move to the center-left which has left LV as significantly more moderate than Carlism. Stressing that the role of his party has been "successful and helpful for stability", Mendiluce's campaign is centered on the continuation and expansion of pro-environment and pro-animal reforms, coupled with an anti-US and pro-Europe foreign policy, support for nuclear disarmament, social liberalization and legalization of same-sex marriage, promotion of ecologist movements and social initiatives and Constitutional Reform, Mendiluce remaining somewhat vague on whether the Greens will support King Carlos Hugo or back a Republic.

Two days.

[Former President tack50]

PCUE this time. Ousting Juan Carlos was bad enough already so let's move to a republic

[DC Al Fine]

PP

[Intell]

PCUE.

[MAINEiac4434]

PCUE.

[Sirius_]

UCD looks more appealing than ever!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

PP. UCD has had plenty of chances, and the Carlists need to go.

[UlmerFudd]

PP

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Carlists forever

[Kingpoleon]

UCD. We want Louis Alphonse or Juan Carlos. Down with neo-Carlism and the false prince! He is but a new regime, like the military junta and hardline communists were. May the people of Spain see the light of day and vote down the Carlist Usurper.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

UCD. We want Louis Alphonse or Juan Carlos. Down with neo-Carlism and the false prince! He is but a new regime, like the military junta and hardline communists were. May the people of Spain see the light of day and vote down the Carlist Usurper.

UCD is campaigning on the restoration of the Republic . . .

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Good, the Carlists have done their job in ridding the nation of the scoundrel Juan Carlos.

[Lumine]

2005 General Election:

July 2005 - Aznar dispatches Carlism as PP returns to power

National Parties:

PP: 35.0%, 187 seats
UCD: 22.8% 96 seats
PCUE: 16.8%, 55 seats
PC: 10.7%, 26 seats
LV: 7.7%, 16 seats
Others: 7%, 20 seats[1].

[1] Includes Autonomist and Nationalist parties.

Following two recent elections in which the sitting government had been smashed and crippled by sudden electoral waves (Tocino in 1998, Mayor Oreja in 2001), the upper echelons of the Carlist-led coalition had grown to believe their 2001's Red Wave was just too much to overcome, and that even if the prospect of losses appeared to be likely the Partido Carlista would remain the largest party with ease, the only possible government for Spain. Both the King and Prime Minister Zabaleta certainly agreed with that assessment and even believed it was more likely that Carlism would make gains rather than face losses, disagreeing only on how to achieve such an outcome. If for Zabaleta it was to prove that Carlism was more than a dynasty and thus promote the younger faces of the party, for the King it was for his party to launch on a relentless defense of its record and fight on a stance as combative as possible, a reminder to some in the Cabinet on how determined Carlos Hugo was after pushing his cousin away despite his ill health.

And when Zabaleta's efforts to play to his strengths on the first days of the campaign with little success after several visits to the Basque Country turned into embarrassment (as the PM was attacked both by ETA victims and ETA supporters) and the polls began to show further erosion, Carlos Hugo made up his mind to involve himself with the campaign. It was to backfire horribly. Not only because many Spaniards were appalled at how the King continued to openly associate himself with his party and promote it in a partisan manner, but because the once minor corruption scandals turned into disaster when members of the new Royal Family were linked to them. This scenario also damaged the Greens out of their association with the Government - Mendiluce's unclear stance on the Monarchy backfiring on him -, and while it was believed that it might just open up the best chance for the Communists to rise in years, Meyer was thought to have sinked his chances once his rhetoric only became more radical rather than subdued.

Against such a backdrop, both José María Aznar and Rosa Díez made the most of it, and achieved historic results for their parties. Aznar ran a relatively scandal-free campaign, focusing on projecting competence and moderation while wasting no time to blast the King and the Carlists, a strategy which seemed to appeal to many Spaniards who were either concerned about political stability or hurt by the lack of an economic recovery. The far more charismatic - but equally divisive - Díez went into a more populist mode, but one which successfully reached out to middle class voters who had once backed Mayor Oreja or Carlos Hugo in hopes for something new. Indeed, such an electoral rebranding allowed the UCD to escape  its image of being more or less stuck on the past, and the collective result was the steady surge of Aznar across the campaign and the dramatic rise of Díez around the final days.

On Election Night a dejected Prime Minister and King watched - separately, as both men were not on speaking terms any longer - Carlism face an almost complete wipeout in the Cortes, retaining only 10% of the vote and losing 150 deputies in a result that left then fourth. Their coalition partners survived the storm in much better shape, but Mendiluce's Los Verdes still lost almost a quarter of their seats. The Spanish Communists faced one of their most bitter nights in living memory, finding out that despite the fall of Carlism they had lost votes, fallen to third place and that their new status had cost them a significant number of seats. Indeed, Zabaleta, Mendiluce and Meyer would all either resign or be forced out of their parties's respective leadership before the year was through. UCD celebrated as it hadn't done in years once it became clear Díez's appeal had cut through, pushing UCD into official status opposition with almost a 100 seats and their best result since Suárez in 1980.

And the Partido Popular felt utterly ecstatic when Aznar not only won the election, but broke Tocino's record of 1995 after achieving 35% of the vote (a better result than even the Carlist Red Tide) and standing short of 16 votes for a majority. There was also an important amount of celebration in autonomist parties, as even if PNV and the Basque Left remained stuck with a couple of seats each and CC only retained their two seats Catalonia experienced a new autonomist revival as CiU narrowly captured the region and returned back to 10 seats, ERC following behind with 4. With Díez (emboldened by the prospect of the main opposition) declining a coalition and with no potential partners in sight, Aznar negotiated with UCD, PNV, CC and CiU to either abstain or support his investiture vote.

The price? A new Constitution for Spain.

[Former President tack50]

Well, I made a map as I've been doing for fun. Some things to keep in mind:

UCD is based in UPyD 2008 (only fitting with Rosa Díez as party leader)
PC is based on PSOE 2004 (far from a good fit but no real alternative I guess)
PP and the nationalists are based off their 2004 results. Same with PCUE (but with IU)

The Greens are based off the 2004 European election. I tried using the general election but since they didn't run in half the country they screwed up the results. They still do, but to a much lesser degree now.



Honestly my biggest complaint is that this map contradicts the TL. The ones before also did to some degree, but never this explicitly. So while CiU is supposed to win in Catalonia (even if it's narrowly), here it's PCUE who wins Catalonia; and it actually isn't close!

I imagine the reason is the OTL massive swing towards ERC, combined with this "model" treating all nationalists equally. CiU+ERC do beat PCUE. I imagine using 2000 results for Catalonia might fix this (at the cost of having then ERC way too low for 4 seats)

So I guess feel free to disregard it. In any case it might work better for other communities?

In any case here's the rest of the usual data. If anyone wants the full table of notional results feel free to ask!

Best community

PP: Ceuta (57.3%)
UCD: Madrid (45.4%)
PCUE: Basque Country (27.5%)
PC: Catalonia (12.3%)
LV: Balearic Islands (19.7%)

Worst community

PP: Basque Country (17.2%)
UCD: Catalonia (2.4%!)
PCUE: Ceuta (2.1%)
PC: Basque Country (6.7%)
LV: Ceuta (4.0%)

Margins of victory

Catalonia: PCUE +6.7 over PP
Basque Country: PCUE+7.1 over PNV

Asturias: PP+10.1 over PCUE
Andalucia: PP+10.4 over PCUE
Aragon: PP+14.6 over UCD

Navarra: PP+15.0 over PCUE
Castille-Leon: PP+17.7 over UCD
Madrid: UCD+18.4 over PP

Canary Islands: PP+20.8 over LV
Cantabria: PP+21.1 over UCD
La Rioja: PP+21.4 over UCD
Castille-La Mancha: PP+24.7 over UCD

Balearic Islands: PP+28.7 over LV
Valencia: PP+29.5 over PCUE

Ceuta: PP+31.5 over UCD
Extremadura: PP+32.2 over UCD
Melilla: PP+33.6 over UCD

Murcia: PP+35.7 over UCD

Galicia: PP+43.2 over UCD