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

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

For the record, I will say that reforming the constitution to get rid of the monarchy is nearly impossible. Even if PP was to support it (lmao) and they agreed to overhaul the constitution for that, the process has some insane barriers. Basically the process is:

1) Get a 2/3 majority in both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate. This means, at the absolute minimum, PSOE+PP+UP need to support it.

2) After the reform gets passed with the 2/3 supermajority; a snap election gets immediately called.

3) After the snap election, you need again a 2/3 supermajority in both the Congress and the Senate to finally pass the reform and put it up to a referendum

4) Once the 2/3 supermajority is achieved twice; a referendum needs to be called. If the referendum is successful, the reform is finally approved

This is because the monarchy is part of the "entrenched" clauses of the constitution, for some bizarre reason.


There is an alternative option that goes against the spirit of the constitution but that would be technically legal, since the entrenching clause (article 168.1) is technically not entrenched itself.

Basically it would involve first removing the monarchy from the list of entrenched clauses, then reforming the constitution again to remove the monarchy. The process would be:

1) Get either a 3/5 majority in both houses of the Cortes Generales; or a 2/3 majority in the Congress of Deputies and 50%+1 in the Senate. This is the standard reform procedure, which has already been performed twice (1992 and 2011). Use this to remove the entrenchment clause from the constitution

2) If at least 35 MPs or 27 Senators request it (1/10 of either chamber), there will be a referendum. While this did not happen in 1992 or 2011 as the reforms passed with over 90% support in both chambers, it is almost certain to happen this time. So the referendum would need to happen

3) After the referendum, reform the constitution again to get rid of the monarchy. Same procedure as in point 1 (unless that got changed)

4) Again if 1/10 of either chamber asks for it, a referendum happens

Worth noting you still need PP support for this, so it is not going to happen, especially not in this way.

Well it could be more difficult than this.

Italy has an entrenching clause about the form of government too (Article 139) except that instead of rendering the process more difficult and complicated, it directly says that it cannot be changed in any way.

And trying to remove the entrenching clause would be more difficult, because constitutional reform in general in Italy is more difficult.
(not to mention that the Constitutional Court would likely immediately block whatever attempt to remove/change Article 139)

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Well it could be more difficult than this.

Italy has an entrenching clause about the form of government too (Article 139) except that instead of rendering the process more difficult and complicated, it directly says that it cannot be changed in any way.

And trying to remove the entrenching clause would be more difficult, because constitutional reform in general in Italy is more difficult.
(not to mention that the Constitutional Court would likely immediately block whatever attempt to remove/change Article 139)

In Portugal the Constitution doesn't allow any change of the political system, according to article 288:

Article 288 - (Material limits of revision)

Constitutional review laws will have to respect:

(...)
b)  The republican form of government;
(...)

Yes in Italy it is the same.
Article 139 is very short, it just states:
"The republican form of government cannot be subject to constitutional review"

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

When France sends its royalty, they are not sending their best. They are not sending you. They're sending people that have a lot of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

Thanks, now I know what to say in case I meet a neo-Bourbonist.

(neo-Bourbonists = a small group of crazy revisionist junkies nostalgic for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies)

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

For those of us who can't read Spanish, a summary?

Well, that is actually an exaggeration, especially the "Podemos collapses" lol

Anyways, the summary is that the Treasurer and the Campaign Managers from Podemos have been charged with illegally financing the party

This is somewhat reminiscent of the Gürtel case from PP a while back, where the PP tresurer was also accused of illegally financing the party as well. (or if you really care to go back that far, the Filesa case where PSOE was also accused of illegal financing in the late 80s)

In any case, they've just been charged. Now it will take a long while until those charges are actually confirmed or dropped. And if confirmed it will take years until the trial finally ends. So we are here for a long while.

Or a more simpler summary is that Podemos is just another member of the "caste", alongside PP, PSOE and others.

Wow, I didn't know that we had exported the term "caste" in that sense.
The phrase "X is just another member of the caste alongside Y and Z" sounds just SO Italian.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Wow, I didn't know that we had exported the term "caste" in that sense.
The phrase "X is just another member of the caste alongside Y and Z" sounds just SO Italian.

Worth noting that, during their early and meteoric rise (2014-2015), many Spanish political commentators noted the similarities between the Italian M5S and the Spanish Podemos. The early Podemos essencially called the old parties "the caste", claimed to be "neither left nor right; but the people vs those in power" and was very populist

Of course, unlike M5S, eventually Podemos moved into a more generic left wing populist party, but those similarities were there.

(the other main comparison of Podemos at the time was with the Greek Syriza I think)

A party started by a comedian and a party started by political scientists are... pretty different.
Anyway, M5S has become part of the caste, too.
M5S is also most noted in Italy for their absurdly strict internal rules.
In the previous legislature, M5S lost 21 Deputies out of 109 and 19 Senators out of 54 in five years.
In the current legislature, they have lost 22 Deputies out of 222 and 14 Senators out of 109 in slightly more than two years.
I don't know if there is anything similar in Podemos.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Today the Spanish government introduced the "Democratic Memory Act", which seems to be basically an expansion of the "Historic Memory Act" passed by the Zapatero government way back in 2005, involving how to deal with the Franco dictatorship; as well as tying in nicely with moving Franco's grave outside of the "Valle de los Caídos".

This bill will then need to be debated and passed by the Congress, but I imagine its passage is extremely likely as I can't see Catalan/Basque nationalists voting against it.

Some of the main points of the new law seem to be:

> The Valle de los Caídos will be reworked into a sort of museum that will honor the dead people during the Civil War in a less partisan way.

> Exhalting the old Francoist regime will be punished by a fine of up to 150 000€.

> The "Francisco Franco National Foundation", as well as any other associations that publicly support the old fascist regime, are outlawed

> All ideological, partisan or religiously motivated court sentences during the Franco era are considered null and void. This includes all sentences given out by the old "Court for the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism" and the "Public Order Court"

> Digging up the common graves of civil war victims will receive public funding, and a national census of victims and DNA will be created to help people identify their relatives killed during the war

> Some nobility titles given out by the Francoist authorities to civil war generals and what not will be removed

> The infamous francoist torturer "Billy El Niño" will have his medals posthumously taken out from him. This was planned to be done while he was still alive but he recently died.

> School curriculums will be updated to account for this historic memory.


https://www.elespanol.com/espana/20200914/franco-congreso-ley-memoria-democratica-preferido-sanchez/520448613_0.html

Glorious news!

Franco's grave had already been moved last year, right?

Will PP / Cs / Vox vote against the bill?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

CC and PRC might also be a possibility for abstaining but I think they will vote in favour.

Why should they abstain? I find it strange for regionalist parties not to agree with this.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

CC and PRC might also be a possibility for abstaining but I think they will vote in favour.

Why should they abstain? I find it strange for regionalist parties not to agree with this.

Well, CC is still a centre-right party at the end of the day so while unlikely it is not inconcievable that they abstain. PRC probably votes in favour though I guess.

Also there are some regionalist parties that are almost certain to abstain or vote no: UPN and Foro Asturias, though they both are little more than PP puppets at this point, especially the latter.

Are they (UPN and Foro Asturias) even represented in the Cortes Generales? I have never heard of them.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

CC and PRC might also be a possibility for abstaining but I think they will vote in favour.

Why should they abstain? I find it strange for regionalist parties not to agree with this.

Well, CC is still a centre-right party at the end of the day so while unlikely it is not inconcievable that they abstain. PRC probably votes in favour though I guess.

Also there are some regionalist parties that are almost certain to abstain or vote no: UPN and Foro Asturias, though they both are little more than PP puppets at this point, especially the latter.

Are they (UPN and Foro Asturias) even represented in the Cortes Generales? I have never heard of them.

Yeah UPN has 2 seats as "Navarra Suma". I think Foro Asturias also has 1 seat but I am not completely sure, the party was on the verge of extinction or fully merging into PP lately. (and has a rather big internal divide on whether they should evolve into a centre-right regionalist party or should just merge back into PP)

Ahhh so UPN is the mythical Navarra +

Are Madrid and the two Castilles the only autonomous communities without any regional parties?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I don't even understand why the EU should consider prosecuting Spain lol.

Who is that Polish politician?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I don't even understand why the EU should consider prosecuting Spain lol.

Who is that Polish politician?

Well the alternative brought up by the opposition is that instead the judiciary should be depoliticized and the Concil of the Judiciary elected by the judges themselves. The problem is that the judges that would do the election are mostly conservatives appointed under Rajoy and who were up for "retention" now but PP has been blocking their renewal.

Indeed not too unlike McConnell blocking the SC justices on the other side of the pond (thankfully the Spanish judiciary is way less politicized than the American one, but it is still not 100% independent from politics)

The thing is that this reform, if passed, would on paper mean that Spain's judiciary would be appointed in a similar-ish manner to those of Poland or Hungary, so that is why they ask if the EU will prosecute Spain.

Somehow I have the feeling that the biggest democratic problem in Poland (and especially in Hungary) is not how they choose judges.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Why do they post stuff that comes across like it was made by edgy 15 year-olds.

Well they need to appeal to the younger demographic somehow.

Something that goes rather underrated is that Vox is actually quite weak among old people. They seem to peak among the 30-44 demographic.

However Vox also has an extremely strong vote among young men; and in fact Vox won a narrow plurality among said demographic.

I never know how accurate this is and I tend to post it more often than I should tbh, but here is the graph of vote split by age and gender:

https://s3.eestatic.com/2019/11/16/actualidad/Actualidad_444967936_138163750_1024x576.jpg

Of course, with Vox the big story is actually the huge gender split and not the age split, but a significant age split still exists.

As someone who comes from another Southern European country, gotta say that this graphic is decidedly unsurprising. By the way, is there data on party preference by religious attendance?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Excluding the parties with super small sample sizes, my conclusions would be:

• PSOE seems fairly representative of the Spanish population at large
• PP extremely overperforming among religious Catholics
• Vox slightly overperforms among Non-practising Catholics and slightly underperforms among non-religious people
• UP extremely overperforms among agnostics and atheists and underperforms among all Catholics
• Cs overperforms by a lot among Non-practising Catholics, and slightly underperforms among atheists (but interestingly not the other 2 non-religious categories)

So for the question you are going to ask, devout Catholics are a titanium PP demographic

Then again that's definitely at least partially a function of old people being extremely heavily for the 2 traditional parties (PSOE and PP).

I was mainly trying to see if my priors ("practicing Catholics" being Titanium Major Parties with a heavy edge for PP and "non-practicing Catholics" being Vox's best group) were correct and they seem to have been confimed.

I was also hoping for data where religious attendance groups are broken by party and not vice versa (i.e. data like what 7sergi9 posted)

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Tbh I find it kind of ironic that ERC is now supporting centralization and meddling on the affairs of the regions

Ironic? This cannot be the first time a Spanish regional party promotes "regionalism for me but not for thee", is it?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Tbh I find it kind of ironic that ERC is now supporting centralization and meddling on the affairs of the regions

Ironic? This cannot be the first time a Spanish regional party promotes "regionalism for me but not for thee", is it?

Probably not, but I can't think of all that many examples. The only one I can remember right now is that the Catalan statute of 2006, as originally written, had a provision that directly meddled in the affairs of other regions, saying something like:

-The financial resources of Catalonia may be adjusted to better balance regional development in Spain, provided other regions do a similar fiscal effort

That was one of the 14 articles that were completely deleted as unconstitutional though. (unsurprising as that was blatantly unconstitutional)

Wow that was blatant Catalan supremacism lol.

Anyway:
1. I'm surprised #trends haven't hit the region of Madrid yet.
2. [citation needed] on your comment about the EU, because it seems to me that it's always damn complicated to get that.
3. Your above post is a good explanation (not that I needed any - we are on a mainly American forum) of why I think federalism generally sucks.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Stockholm still votes to the right of the country as a whole, no? Oslo as well, possibly.

I am not sure about Stockholm proper, but its suburbs seem to be the only places where the Moderate Party tops the poll, together with the suburbs of Malmö.
Oslo seems to be right-leaning too, yes.

I wonder when various capitals last voted to the right of their nation.
Rome has never done in the Second Republic Party System. Things get obviously messy before 1994... the margin between DC and PCI was generally closer (actually PCI won Rome in 1976 and 1983) but Rome was also peculiarly good for the far-right. Last time Rome uncontrovertibly voted to the right of Italy appears to be 1948.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Skye's Barcelona maps are very informative and neat, thank you!

Anyway, I have never followed the Catalan crisis in any particular detail (although from what I know it looks just... ahem, completely insane), but I'm certainly interested in these next elections.

^{*: Worth noting that a newspaper's editorial bias does not always translate to its polls. La Razón and ABC are both quite right wing, PP supporting newspapers for instance. But while La Razón's pollster (NC Report) tends to be rather rosy for PP, ABC's pollster (GAD3) tends to be the most accurate in Spain. Or for a left wing example, La Sexta is a TV station with a heavy left wing bias, but its polls (Invymark) are reasonably fair and accurate.}

Not surprising, it's like Fox News polls which are generally pretty fair and accurate, whereas we all know the bias of Fox News as a TV station.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Well, here's hoping for 'Illa momentum 2.0' in May or something. But likely it won't happen. Damn, it's sad to see elections postponed because of the pandemic.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The High Court of Catalonia orders the precautionary suspension of the regional government decree postponing elections to May 30. The previous decree calling elections on February 14 remains in force until the judiciary rules

Meanwhile Pablo Iglesias raised controversy comparing the self-imposed exile of Carles Puigdemont to the Spanish republican exilees after 1939. Go and dig your own hole,  comrade Iglesias

So... what happens to the Catalonian elections? February 14 is pretty close.

Oof Iglesias.
We all know who is the one true great Pablo Iglesias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Iglesias_Posse

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The High Court of Catalonia orders the precautionary suspension of the regional government decree postponing elections to May 30. The previous decree calling elections on February 14 remains in force until the judiciary rules

So... what happens to the Catalonian elections? February 14 is pretty close.

Nobody knows

I read the other day that Catalonia is the westernmost Italian region. It's a metaphor, of course.

Lmao

Nah, beating the slowness of our judiciary is basically impossible.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I'm sorry to inform Josep Sort that Catalans are, in fact, Spaniards.

I wonder if he meant just Castilians or all non-Catalans though. I have always wondered whether different Spanish regionalist movements and non-Castilian regional identities have resentment towards each other.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I just can't

The PP emoji, in terms of electoral campaign moments, is Dukakis-tank-photo-op tier of bad, I suppose.

Este #14F vota cualquier partido excepto el PP por una Cataluña sin emojis atroces

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

It has surfaced that far-right journalist Federico Jiménez Losantos was in the PP's payroll to spread conspiracy theories on the authorship of the Madrid bombings (March 11, 2004). Ironically the Bárcenas revelations might favor Vox, the party that Losantos currently supports

In other news, a new performative poll conducted by the Tezanos institute puts Salvador Illa's PSC ahead in the Catalan contest. Meanwhile ERC and Junts are falling out because Laura Borràs said that Oriol Junqueras was in prison for corruption charges. Borràs is being investigated by the Supreme Court  for alleged prevarication, fraud and emblezzement . The ERC secretary general Marta Rovira, who lives in Geneva since March 2018, demanded Borràs an apology

Likelihood that either of these news has any significant impact at the polls?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

1. So well-off Catalans are separatists and poorer ones are unionists? Shocked, shocked I tell you. Who could have guessed?

2. How many Evangelicals live in Spain exactly? And are they particularly overrepresented in Catalonia?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

What does our Spanish posters' gut feeling say today, on election day?

Also, at which hour do polling stations close?