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

[Astatine]

Ciudadanos will run on a joint list with Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD) for the elections, just like in the EU elections.

Does anyone believe this will have any impact? In EU elections a Cs-UPyD pact made sense to some extent as UPyD still had an MEP to defend, but now? Centrist and anti-separatist UPyD had some good polling results from 2011 (when the got almost 5 %) to 2014 (when Cs started to rise), but back then talks for an electoral alliance were not successful, so major members of the party left it and after disastrous results in the 2015 regional and municipal elections, UPyD leader Rosa Diez (around whom the party was basically built), resigned and withdrew from politics, even leaving her party after a 0.6 % showing in the 2015 elections. In 2016, UPyD went on to decline to 0.2 %. And last time they did not even run.
So what is the matter of this pact (which comes five years too late) anyways?

[Astatine]

Four years is a long time, yes. Feijoo could stay in Galicia for a long time or could try to jump into national politics. According to some rumours, Feijoo was prevented to contest the PP leadership because someone threatened to release a dossier against him featuring some photos with Feijoo in the yatch of a smuggler called Marcial Dorado in the 1990s that are "hard to explain". Just remember that former Madrid premier Cristina Cifuentes fell definitely from grace when someone decided to leak a video of her stealing beauty creams in a supermarket next to the regional assembly...

Wasn't this rather the tip of the iceberg of a whole scandal where she was caught having a fake University degree?

[Astatine]

It fell under the radar, and is a bit off-topic, but RIP UPyD (2007-2020). The party became irrelevant over the last years, but was represented in Parliament from 2008 until 2015. At the point of its dissolution, it had still 1 MEP (Maite Pagazaurtundúa - elected over the Cs list in the 2019 EU elections) and 1 local councillor (out of 67,515).

Apparently, the party was in deep debts and couldn't pay its bills, so a court disbanded it in November, and in December UPyD dropped its appeal against the ruling and officially ceased to exist.
As far as I know, UPyD's last leader Cristiano Brown ran as part of the Cs list in Madrid in the 2019 general elections and could still make it into Parliament if a Cs MP from Madrid resigns from his/her seat.

[Astatine]

It fell under the radar, and is a bit off-topic, but RIP UPyD (2007-2020). The party became irrelevant over the last years, but was represented in Parliament from 2008 until 2015. At the point of its dissolution, it had still 1 MEP (Maite Pagazaurtundúa - elected over the Cs list in the 2019 EU elections) and 1 local councillor (out of 67,515).

Apparently, the party was in deep debts and couldn't pay its bills, so a court disbanded it in November, and in December UPyD dropped its appeal against the ruling and officially ceased to exist.
As far as I know, UPyD's last leader Cristiano Brown ran as part of the Cs list in Madrid in the 2019 general elections and could still make it into Parliament if a Cs MP from Madrid resigns from his/her seat.

A final homage to this obscure, centrist and irrelevant party whose founder went from PSOE to UPyD, only to endorse PP in the last elections.

[Astatine]

It fell under the radar, and is a bit off-topic, but RIP UPyD (2007-2020). The party became irrelevant over the last years, but was represented in Parliament from 2008 until 2015. At the point of its dissolution, it had still 1 MEP (Maite Pagazaurtundúa - elected over the Cs list in the 2019 EU elections) and 1 local councillor (out of 67,515).

Apparently, the party was in deep debts and couldn't pay its bills, so a court disbanded it in November, and in December UPyD dropped its appeal against the ruling and officially ceased to exist.
As far as I know, UPyD's last leader Cristiano Brown ran as part of the Cs list in Madrid in the 2019 general elections and could still make it into Parliament if a Cs MP from Madrid resigns from his/her seat.

[
A final homage to this obscure, centrist and irrelevant party whose founder went from PSOE to UPyD, only to endorse PP in the last elections.

To be honest, I was unaware of the UPYD's legal demise. So yes, I admit the news fell under my radar. But in no way it's off-topic in this thread. I don't know where is Maite Pagaza now, but certainly the last news I read about Rosa Díez is that she endorsed the PP (Diez had resigned from the party she founded some time before).  Rest In Peace

I remember that I felt a bit sad when I read the news about the dissolution of ICV in 2019, due to a debt amounting to 9.2 million euros. Currently some of the ICV membership is active within Catalunya en Comú (part of En Comú Podem). Iniciativa per Catalunya began as the legal heir of the PSUC, the Catalan communist party counterpart of the Spanish PCE. The post-communists evolved to ecosocialism and ICV became a member party of the European Greens. Some former members talked about the possibility of a refoundation inder the name Esquerra Verda ("Green Left")

Maite Pagaza is still a Member of the European Parliament within Renew Europe and part of the Ciudadanos delegation. She never withdrew her membership, so she was truly the "last woman standing", but with the dissolution of UPyD, she should be a nominal independent? Might wonder whether she'd join Cs officially. Don't know about the last municipal representative tho.

[Astatine]

https://i.ibb.co/qs2m7j8/cops.png


Remember the Police housing precinct we were discussing two months ago? Well, PSC topped the poll, but only because VOX and PP split the conservative vote.

That has to be the most hilarious result of this election. Although of course the Right bloc still beat the Left bloc easily.
Interesting how hard C's was destroyed here, much harder than the average.

The turnout drop is also... something.