Spanish elections and politics II: Catalan elections on February 14, 2021

[Skye]

El País released today an interactive map that shows the median income of Spaniards by census blocks. I think they're the same as the voting precincts, so it'd be interesting to compare it to the April election results. I'm already seeing some correlation between income and the left v. right vote.

https://elpais.com/economia/2019/09/11/actualidad/1568217626_928704.html

[Skye]

This is Valladolid. The two brown-ish precincts (by income) correspond to Las Viudas (in Las Delicias) and 29 de Octubre (in Pajarillos), which, if I understand correctly, are Franco-era block housing projects. I saw Las Viudas once, it wasn't a pretty place.

The precinct with the darkest green is in the city centre, (overall a high-income area) and it seems it's the place with the highest income in Castile and Leon. PSOE+UP combined only took 10% of the vote there.

[Skye]

https://twitter.com/AntonioMaestre/status/1173537854766669826

This looks like big news.

[Skye]

https://twitter.com/AntonioMaestre/status/1173537854766669826
This looks like big news.

Please translate if you're going to post tweets in Spanish

Right, sorry.

"BREAKING NEWS: Albert Rivera offers the PP to abstain together to invest Pedro Sanchez in exchange of:
-Breaking off the (PSOE+GBai+Podemos) deal in Navarra.
-Negotiate article 155 for Catalonia.  They'd commit to pardon those imprisoned of the 'procés'.
-An economic program not to raise taxes.

(That's the best I could do).

[Skye]

https://elpais.com/politica/2019/09/16/actualidad/1568614552_569307.html

Looks like we're heading for a new election, bois.

[Skye]

https://www.elindependiente.com/politica/2019/09/20/mas-madrid-lanzara-su-candidatura-a-las-generales-en-los-proximos-dias/

Más Madrid is IN for the general elections. Errejón will probably lead the list, as Carmena declined to be a candidate. So far it's unknown where they plan to compete.

[Skye]

The left seems to be doing better in terms of %'s now that Más País is in. I wonder what do you all think about that. Like, why do you think that is, do you think their numbers will hold, etc.

[Skye]

Went out to buy bread, ended up finding PM Pedro Sánchez exiting a bar to deliver a speech:



Apparently Sánchez came to town to campaign, since PSOE wants to capture Palencia's third deputy (the province only elects 3 deputies since it's so small), which they narrowly lost to C's in the previous election. The April results were these:

PSOE: 31.3 (1)
PP: 29.6 (1)
C's:15.9 (1)
VOX: 11.7
UP:9.2

Now, since Ciudadanos seems to have collapsed and the PP has recovered in the polls, I think it's more likely that the PP ends up winning that third seat. I'm not an expert though.

[Skye]

Total left: 43% (155)
Total right: 44% (156)

So a total tie. In theory this would mean the election is too close to call, but the right has literally no allies within the "others" group (other than NA+ and maybe CC, and this last one is a stretch)

The Right bloc was leading in the polls for the April elections, and the final result was a near-tie. El País seems to have erased their aggregate polling for the April elections, so I don't know the exact numbers.

Now the blocs are tied, so I guess either one of them could overperform!

In terms of the evolution, the big changes seem to be a total Cs collapse and a massive rise for Vox. Keep in mind that Vox will get very few votes and no seats in like a third of the country (Catalonia, Basque Country, Canary Islands, Galicia); so the fact that they are this high is remarkable as it means they would be close to 20% in the rest of Spain!

I'm super interested in the places where C's ran strong in the April elections. Places like the PAU's in northern Madrid (Las Tablas, Valdebebas), the wealthy municipalities to the northwest of Madrid (Pozuelo de Alarcón, Las Rozas de Madrid). Heck, near where I live, in Valladolid C's performed quite well, they got over 20% in most of the (I guess you could call them suburban?) municipalities that surround the capital city. Given their collapse in the polls, I wonder where most of their votes will end up now.

[Skye]

I suspect Vox will have a great election night. Santiago Abascal was the winner of the TV debate held on Monday, according to some commentators.

https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/11/05/inenglish/1572942887_385671.html

The televised debate on Monday night between the five main candidates to become Spain’s next prime minister underscored that the battle for votes is taking place in the center of the political spectrum (...) 

To be fair, the polling trends before the debate clearly had VOX rising, if they do perform well, I don't think we'll know exactly how much of that was because of the debate.

[Skye]

I just saw this image:


Do Spanish politicians not get mocked for using props like most would?

I've seen some hilarious memes out of this image.

I personally found it bizarre when it happened.

[Skye]

Casado is in town right now. I couldn't get a pic of him, because there is far more ruckus in comparison with Sanchez's rally. Then again, the city centre is far friendlier to the PP than it is with the PSOE. There's also the fact that Casado is from here.

[Skye]

Amazing how much the VOX have surged.  I guess the Catalonia and Franco exhumation issue really played into their strength 

More the fact the C's failed to commit to any side, and their triangulation was laid bare for all to see. So the Castilian nationalist vote, which was previous a lock for the oranges, is now in Vox's camp. The only difference for these voter groups between the two parties is really that Vox says the quiet part load - go back a few pages and you will see the voter demographics between the two parties are more then correlated.

In fact here's a  little spoiler from my twitter: excusing the C's home base of Catalonia and the far south where  the comparatively minor tenant of Anti-Arab politics play well, the votes are near enough to a perfect correlation. Especially in populated Madrid.

Can you explain a little bit what's happening in this map? I don't really get it.

[Skye]

Interesting explanation, thank you.

Also I suppose there is a chance VOX gets a deputy in my province (Palencia) if they overperform. Though El País doesn't seem to think so: https://elpais.com/especiales/2019/elecciones-generales/escanos-provincias/

[Skye]

So, uh, you guys have any predictions?

[Skye]

On a sidenote, because absentee voting from abroad sucks in Spain I have been de-facto disenfranchised, so I am not voting in this election.

I guess I have a reason to support a third election now

Wow that absolutely sucks. Why is that? I read something about the issue yesterday but it didn't explain it well.

[Skye]

On a sidenote, because absentee voting from abroad sucks in Spain I have been de-facto disenfranchised, so I am not voting in this election.

I guess I have a reason to support a third election now

Wow that absolutely sucks. Why is that? I read something about the issue yesterday but it didn't explain it well.

Basically, I applied to vote from abroad by mail as a temporary resident abroad (ERTA vote; which is not the same as the CERA vote for permanent residents) but my ballots never arrived. Honestly I wish I could have just gone to my nearest embassy/consulate and vote there in person but that is apparently not allowed.

This article by El Pais explains the situation quite well in my opinion. Turnout among Spaniards abroad permanently was a whopping 5.6% last time.

https://elpais.com/politica/2019/11/09/actualidad/1573326362_103978.html

Thanks, I was also reading about it in another article.

At first glance, the system looks draconian to me.

It's a bit similar for Venezuelan migrants, though the main reason it's difficult to vote is because expats have to reside legally in the country they currently live in, plus register in the embassies/consulates which can be a hassle since they're manned by people who reaaally don't want people abroad to vote. though my country doesn't have competitive elections anymore so who care

[Skye]

That doesn't sound half bad actually, but what do I know.

[Skye]

When does polls close? 8PM Madrid time ?

Yep. 8PM Madrid Time, 7PM London/Lisbon time.

Worth noting polls close at 9PM Madrid time in the Canary Islands (8PM local time), so early counts will only have 335/350 MPs

El País and ABC are reporting that results will start to come at 9 pm. Who do I believe D:

[Skye]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1193605482478493697

[Skye]

Madrid and Barcelona are way behind on the vote count.

[Skye]

Ciudadanos really imploded lol.

[Skye]

PP just took a deputy out of the hands of the PSOE in Madrid.

[Skye]

99% of the vote is in, and it seems that (once again) the main ideological blocs are roughly tied in terms of votes.

[Skye]

That Melilla result is bouncing back and forth lol.