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

[Antonio the Sixth]

Also, decided to make maps of the election by bloc. The first includes the regional parties on the left-right count.

I decided to put PNV and JxCat on the right in order to better reflect ideology even if they would never do a deal with PP-Cs-Vox.

The 2nd one is pretty much a straight PSOE-UP-PACMA vs PP-Cs-Vox affair.





You can click on them if you want to enlarge them.

I'll probably do a swing and trend map later.

I'm assuming this map is by region/autonomous community rather than province? Otherwise it's odd that every province in the same community has the same shade.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Bloc results:

Left (PSOE, UP, ECP, Compromís) 43.65%

Right (PP, Cs, VOX, NA+) 43.23%

Catalan nationalists (ERC, JxCAT, FR) 6.23%

Basque nationalists (EAJ-PNV, EH Bildu, GBai) 2.58%

Fascinating how the two main blocs are basically tied nationwide but the Right is ahead almost everywhere. It's not even just a population density thing, since the Right is ahead in Madrid and some of the relatively dense coastal areas. A lot of it is probably because the national right is so nonexistent in Catalonia and Euskadi.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The result in Galicia is noticeable as well, as this region is another traditional PP stronghold. The Left got 46.6%, the Right 43.8% and leftwing nationalists 6.8%. To the contrary, the Right won in traditional PSOE strongholds like Extremadura (L 47.6%, R 50.1%).

Yeah, I was wondering about the big swing in Galicia. Any idea why the left did so well in there? In general the trend I surmise has the left do better in the Northwest and the East coast, but worse in the Southern half of the country. What do you think can explain that?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Catalan nationalists make the f**king SNP bozos look like responsible adults. JFC.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Nice precinct map of the local elections in Barcelona,  a very tight contest in a city of fascinating electoral geography. Clickable, of course

https://m.eldiario.es/catalunya/MAPA-Consulta-municipales-Barcelona-calle_0_903959951.html

Huh, interesting that the few Cs precincts (lolvalls, btw) are enclaved into ERC's general area of strength. Since those are the two parties most far apart from each other, I'd have assumed their voters lived further apart.

More generally, can you explain the sociological patterns for those who aren't familiar to Barcelona's geography?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Who could possibly have foreseen this might go wrong for the PSOE?

Yeah, Sanchez showed the same hubris May did back in 2017, and this looks like it's backfiring on him as it did on her.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is insane.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is insane.

Why? Whether one agrees with Catalan Independence as a principle or not, what they did and the way that they did it was clearly a violation of the law and the Constitution. The Spanish Constitutional Court made that very clear before they did it, and they still went ahead with it. I have no doubt that every Court in a Country with the rule of law would have judged the same as the Spanish Supreme Court just did. 

I don't even agree with Catalan Independence as a principle!

For crying out loud, we're talking about locking people up for more than a decade for holding a sham referendum that would have changed nothing even if it had been allowed. This is a comical level of overreaction (or it would be comical if actual people's lives hadn't been ruined by it). Libertarians love to talk on and on about "victimless crimes", but this IS the ultimate victimless crime. No tangible harm whatsoever was caused by the referendum itself - in fact, most of the harm came, again, from the Spanish state's paranoid attempts to stop the referendum. This is exactly the kind of repressive escalation that's likely to drive more Catalans toward nationalism, and break the country apart.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yes, people were clearly and meaningfully harmed in both those instances. That's a ridiculous parallel.

A sham referendum is just a sham referendum. You enforce the rule of law by letting it happen and letting everyone see that it meant nothing.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I can't believe people here are seriously defending locking people up for longer than that Dallas killer cop for the crime of holding a fake election, in the name of MUH NATIONAL UNITY or some other abstract bullsh*t. Seems like the authoritarian culture in Spanish society hasn't declined all that much since Franco's days.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Whatever. Fine them for the cost of the referendum if you really want the money back. Just don't throw people in prison for a political crime.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Whatever the actual results end up being, the depressed turnout is a major defeat for Spanish democracy. This is what you get when politicians are would rather play dumb games to outmaneuver one another than sit down and actually try to govern together.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The people of Spain: We are so tired of all these elections!

Also the people of Spain: *elects a parliament which is less likely to work together*

It's the job of politicians to make do with the parliament voters give them, not of voters to give politicians the parliament they want.

[Antonio the Sixth]

PEDRO SANCHEZ, TACTICAL MASTERMIND

[Antonio the Sixth]

it seems like the far right is declining in influence in parts of central and Western Europe

God I wish that were true.

[Antonio the Sixth]

THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS ELECTION?!?

Pedro Sánchez, the Theresa May of Spain.

Your choice at this election: Strong and Stable leadership with the Socialist Party or a coalition of chaos led by (checks notes) the Socialist party

tfw you are your own Ed Miliband

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well good job Sanchez for wasting 9 months and making his government more precarious than it could have been under the previous election results. Now that that exercise in pointlessness is complete, maybe he can get around to actually governing for a while (not that he'll last long).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow, that is a MASSIVE drop-off in turnout. That's an absolutely disheartening result regardless of who won. And even besides that, with independentists still in the majority, it's hard being very optimistic about a negotiated solution to this mess. Here's hoping, though.