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

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

The Royal Household has finally confirmed the whereabouts of former King Juan Carlos: He's been in the United Arab Emirates since August 3, which is the same place where the photo of him disembarking a plane was allegedly taken.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

Wow. Cayetana Álvarez de?Toledo is a hardliner and a free verse, too. She has been advocating a "concentration government" with the PSOE at her own peril and despite she has been very harsh with Sánchez. The current Mayor of Madrid has a better public image and is less controversial than the Madrid premier. Cuca Gamarra is a former mayor of Logroño and has been the PP's Deputy Secretary for Social Affairs until now. It's up to see what is going to be the tone and the strategy of the PP from now on...

I think that with these changes, Casado is signaling a more centrist tone and strategy. After Feijóo's success in Galicia and Iturgaiz's failure in the Basque Country, it seems like the logical course of action. Capitalizing on Almeida's cross-party appeal is also a smart move.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo just held a very belligerent press conference, coherent with her style. She harshly criticized the leadership of the PP and revealed details about her private conversation with Pablo Casado (who she kept referring to as "Mr. Casado") this morning and about internal affairs of the party (she revealed that she wanted to allow a conscience vote on moral issues for MPs and that the parliamentary leadership lacked autonomy due to the personal interference of General Secretary Teodoro García-Egea, among other things).

She stated her clear opposition to Pablo Casado's decision to sack her, which according to her is bad for the party and the country. She said that Casado told her he was unhappy about her outspokenness (which he considers a challenge to his authority) and her opposition to talks with the Government on the Budget and the appointment of judges (from which she was completely excluded). She also claimed that he disliked her focus on "culture war" issues like feminism and the legacy of Franco's dictatorship.

In regards to her future, she didn't say whether she would resign from her seat or leave the party. She will spend a couple of days with her daughters before making any decision.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

Today, the government suffered its first major parliamentary defeat over a decree that forced local administrations to turn their surpluses over to the central government if they wanted to have access to a 5 billion euro aid fund. Congress overturned it, with PSOE and UP only managing to convince Teruel Existe's one MP to vote with them.

Mayors from all across the country have voiced their dissatisfaction with the plan, arguing that taking away their surpluses would hamper their ability so satisfy local needs at a moment where they are bigger and more urgent than ever and that it was unfair to deny aid to administrations without surpluses or unwilling to turn them over.

During the last-minute negotiations, the coalition agreed to give administrations that did not turn over their surpluses access to 40% of the funds, but it refused to suspend a rule from the previous PP government that limits the ability of municipalities to produce a deficit; which ended up being the main reason for its defeat. It is only the fourth time since 1979 that a government decree has been overturned.

The Finance Ministry has already announced that after this defeat all municipalities will have access to the aid fund.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

The Government easily won a vote to start the process of passing the 2021 budget, gaining the backing of both C’s and the left-wing nationalists (ERC and Bildu), though this simultaneous support is almost certainly not going to repeat itself in the final vote (which will probably take place in January) and PSOE-UP will have to choose between them.

Bildu’s support was especially controversial, since part of the coalition of parties that composes it is a successor to Herri Batasuna, the former political wing of the Basque separatist terrorist organization ETA. Vox, unsurprisingly, lambasted the Government and accused it of cooperating with terrorists, while Pablo Casado attacked the PSOE affirming that the agreement was proof that Pablo Iglesias is really in charge.

There was also some pushback from inside the PSOE itself, with regional president Guillermo Fernández-Vara from Extremadura saying the inclusion of Bildu was “nauseating” and Castilla La Mancha regional president Emiliano García Page going as far as echoing the PP’s claims that Podemos is setting the Government’s agenda.

Personally, I believe it is good that Bildu is finally being included in the democratic system, ignoring hundreds of thousands of Basques who are trying to make their voices heard is not fair to them nor beneficial to the country. In fact, we should be very happy that they are doing it through ballots instead of bullets. Violence could once again become appealing to them if they are constantly blocked from participating in the political process peacefully.

I understand the large segment of Spaniards who despise Bildu and everything it stands for, but if we want true reconciliation, we have to learn to live with each other. To keep loathing them is going to backfire if their objective is to mantain Spanish unity, it will only make Basques feel more excluded and increase separatist sentiment.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

I wouldn't worry too much about the SyM Consulting survey, it's a pretty trashy pollster. In November 2019 they were the only ones who predicted an outright PP-Vox-C's majority (with C's holding 35-40 seats).

About the GESOP poll, El Periódico polls usually are a bit too rosy for the PSC, but I do buy that Salvador Illa is the preferred candidate by a large margin. Name recognition is probably a significant factor though, since the other candidates are relative newcomers to the political scene and he has received enormous amounts of media attention due to the pandemic.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

Yeah that PSC result is extremely unlikely, way too rosy. I’ll believe the socialists have actually surged ahead when other pollsters confirm it. If the pattern set by the Galician and Basque regional elections held, we should expect mediocre results for the PSC and disastrous results for ECP, along with a rise of the nationalist left, ERC in Catalonia’s case, at the expense of both (more ECP than the socialists).

However, Catalonia differs from Galicia and the Basque Country in that C’s has a very strong presence, meaning that the PSC has a large batch of centrist unionist voters to make inroads into. ECP doesn’t have any obvious place to gain new voters, so my guess is that they’ll do even worse than polls are currently predicting, bleeding voters in three directions: towards ERC and, to a lesser extent, CUP (voters in favor of independence who voted ECP because they thought they could be a force in favor of holding a referendum agreed with Madrid, now disenchanted due to the lack of progress in that area even with UP in government), PSC (left-wing voters who like the current national government and gravitate towards the senior partner) and towards abstention (disillusioned voters in general).

About Illa, I’m not convinced by him. Looking at the circumstances, it’s clear why he was chosen, plus the initial reaction to his candidacy has been quite positive. What concerns me is his lack of charisma and lack of experience heading an electoral list, he could flounder in the campaign. That would add to the PSC’s tendency of doing worse than expected on election day (they only bucked the trend in 2015, probably due to the fact that they hit rock bottom that time and couldn’t get any lower).

My prediction is another nationalist coalition (led by ERC, my gut tells me the Puigdemont effect won’t be as strong as it used to be, especially since he isn’t the candidate this time) and another four years of hopeless deadlock in the Catalan situation.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

GAD3 poll for La Vanguardia:

Turnout: 64% (-18% compared with 2017)

ERC: 24,1% (-3,2), 37-39 seats
PSC: 20,5% (+1,4), 30-31 seats
Junts: 18,5% (-1,4), 31 seats
C’s: 9,7% (-0,5), 13 seats
PP: 6,2% (-0,2), 8 seats
ECP: 6,0% (-0,7), 6-7 seats
CUP: 4,3% (+0,4), 4-5 seats
Vox: 4,0% (-0,2), 4 seats
PDECAT: 2,9% (+2,9), 0-1 seats

Comparisons with last GAD3 poll, conducted in September.
The nationalists would have a majority without relying on CUP, while ERC-PSC-ECP would also have a comfortable majority.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

The Catalan regional elections could be postponed until May:

https://twitter.com/rtvenoticias/status/1349326075654856704

The Catalan Government is willing to postpone the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia, scheduled for February 14, given the advance of the coronavirus pandemic, according to TVE.

Yeah, it looks like Catalan elections are going to be postponed to the second half of May due to the mounting third wave of coronavirus. All parties have expressed doubt at the prospect of keeping the February 14 date, given the status of the pandemic; the only exception being the socialists, who of course stand to lose the most in a delayed election scenario (they are the ones with all the momentum right now). In any case, the decision won’t be taken until Friday.

In other news, a couple of significant rifts have occurred within the coalition government. The first one is over skyrocketing electricity prices (which have doubled in the past few days) due to the cold wave the country is currently experiencing. UP is calling for increased regulation and even partial nationalization of the energy sector, while the PSOE’s line is to maintain the status quo, arguing that the spike is a momentary occurrence caused by the historically low temperatures and has nothing to do with the way the electricity supply system is structured. UP is also pointing out that the government program agreed between both parties called for reform of the energy market.

The other one is over former King Juan Carlos. The PSOE sided with the right and effectively blocked a parliamentary investigative commission proposed by UP into the alleged use of so-called “black cards” by the former monarch, in spite of advice by the Congress’s legal counsel that stated that such an investigation would be legal. The junior partners in the coalition sharply criticized the socialists for this decision, especially Minister of Defense Margarita Robles, who has been the most outspoken defender of the monarchy within the PSOE.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

I have always wondered whether different Spanish regionalist movements and non-Castilian regional identities have resentment towards each other.

One example of regional resentment, which I happen to know well because I live in Castille and Leon, is the vitriol that many Leonese have for the rest of Castille, and more specifically, Valladolid. The main reason is the fact that León has its own identity but not its own Autonomous Community, being lumped together with what used to be Castilla La Nueva in 1978. They complain that since then Valladolid has had a centralist attitude towards them.

"León sin Castilla es una maravilla" (Leon without Castille is a marvel), or "León capital, Pucela sucursal" (Leon capital, Pucela (Valladolid's nickname) subsidiary) are some of the phrases you might hear if you go to León. Also, be careful if you call a Leonese "Castillian", they may not react very well.