Spanish elections and politics III / Pedro Sánchez faces a new term as PM

[Mike88]

PSOE is now asking for a recount of 30,302 invalid ballots in Madrid after losing one seat to the PP. The party says that the difference between both parties is very close and that they want to be sure that every vote is counted.

Update: Madrid's Electoral Junta has rejected the PSOE request and there will be no recount.

[Mike88]

Which seems reasonable enough, it is fair to say this PP "gain" wasn't terribly expected?

It was another surprise in an election full of surprises. In fact, from the provinces that reveiled their overseas results, overall PP is leading PSOE in terms of votes counted, which is quite surprising as PP normally performes badly in overseas votes.

Do you have the CERA vote percentages in Spain?

While the PP performed badly in oversas vote,  I think Cs got decent vote percentages in previous elections. Maybe "centrist liberal" expats, people with professional backgrounds, or whatever. Quite possibly the PP benefitted from Cs collapse,  but still the Madrid CERA vote is astonishingly right-wing adding PP and Vox.  Also, Podemos used to be very strong among young expats, winning the overseas vote in 2015 and 2016. Even though Sumar outperforms in CERA vote, it's a modest performance compared to that of Podemos in its heyday. Abolishing the "requested vote" didn't have a great impact in voter turnout,  sadly

The share of the vote I don't have because some results are only partial and don't include the full tally, but the ballot results from 45 provinces, La Rioja and Girona are incomplete, are the following: (from what I've collected so far)

63,299 PP
53,821 PSOE
28,044 Sumar
21,292 Vox
  2,574 Junts
  2,564 ERC
  1,780 Bildu
  1,647 BNG
  1,430 PNV
     410 UPN

[Mike88]

I pointed out that if CERA was even slightly helpful for PP they were quite close to gaining a seat in Madrid and another in Girona

La Rioja and Girona are incomplete

how close is PP to winning this Girona seat?

The PP was just 363 votes from winning the seat from Junts, but the overseas vote only gave them 275 votes, and Junts got 336 votes. So, it was close but not that much.

[Mike88]

https://twitter.com/Nassreddin2002/status/1685984337852870656?s=20

That's a weird statement from UPN. Yes, Feijóo doesn't have the numbers, but Sanchéz's path isn't that clear also. Maybe they are trying to shore up their vote value for a possible 2nd election.

[Mike88]

The new Congress will convene tomorrow, 17 August, and will elect the President of the Chamber and Vice-Presidents. This will be the first test to forecast who has the edge to form the next government, or not, and as of now neither PP or PSOE have the numbers to elect their candidates.

[Mike88]

Besides the whole affair of the "declaration" of independence and referendum, Puigdemont also has corruption accusations against him, doesn't he? I recall hearing something about it.

[Mike88]

Besides the whole affair of the "declaration" of independence and referendum, Puigdemont also has corruption accusations against him, doesn't he? I recall hearing something about it.

Puigdemont is accused of disobedience and misappropriation, as far as I recall. The charge of misappropiation is related to the alleged diversion of public funds to the illegal referendum that took place in 2017. Aside from that,  I haven't heard about corruption issues related to him

The politician who is convicted for corruption is Junts chairwoman Laura Borràs, former speaker of the Catalan Parliament. Borrás was sentenced to 4 years of prison for prevarication and falsehood, committed when she presided the Institute of the Catalan Letters (apparently she modified contracts to benefit a friend). She has appealed the sentence in order to avoid prison. Junts claims that she's victim of lawfare and demands an amnesty law that exonerates her.

Those pending legal causes affecting Puigdemont and the other "exiled" politicians are a cery complex issue to solve,  on the other hand

Ah, right. I knew that someone in Junts had corruption issues, but wasn't sure if it was Puigdemont or someone else.

I agree that the case is very, very complex and simple solutions are not the answer, especially because of how polarized Spain is right now. Any major reform, from either side, will be rejected.

[Mike88]

Worth noting that a system like that would also greatly increase regional inequality in Spain, as might be expected from a wealthy region not paying any sort of solidarity to the poorer regions. I've seen some studies for both a "Concierto" for Catalonia and one where it just gets generalized to all 17 Spanish regions. In the former scenario, as you may expect, Catalonia is suddenly a lot richer and everyone else a lot poorer. In the latter scenario you get a few more winners (most notably Madrid, I am sure Ayuso is salivating at the chance) and the losers lose even more money.

What do the socialist regional barones say about this? This can be devastating for the PSOE electoral support in the long term.

Well the PP have most of the regional governments right now,  but that doesn't invalidate the intended point. Sanchez giving into Junts demands on most things beyond amnesty would be a poisoned chalice of epic scale, especially since the numbers wouldn't make governing very feasible.

One wonders why he's even bothering,  since polling since the election suggests a tied election rather than a marginal PP lead.  That would give PSOE the seats needed to get the everyone-but-seperatists-and-conservatives government back together.  I guess though he needs to make a show of rejecting their demands first before Spain goes to a  new election.

Well, polls are still reflecting the "comeback" effect of PSOE in the elections, adding to this the confusion in the PP and Vox strategies, but, nothing is certain right now. A Murcia snap election could be the "final nail in the coffin" for Vox, just like it was for Ciudadanos, and benefit PP, it's a possibility. Plus, Sanchéz made a strong "promise" that there would not be a repeat election, so, him failing that pledge would be a demonstration of failure, which is not good when you're starting a possible election campaign. No one knows what Junts and PSOE are negotiating, even if there are negotiating, so everything is still up in the air at this point.

[Mike88]

Feijóo's investiture debate and vote is schedule for 26 and 27 September. If he fails, Sanchéz will get an opportunity and if he also fails, snap elections will be held during January 2024.

[Mike88]

The most striking thing, nowadays, is the complete cluelessness of many people in high ranking posts. They don't know how to be nor how to behave.

[Mike88]

The Supreme Court has rejected PSOE's appeal to recount the 30,000 invalid ballots in Madrid. After the Madrid electoral junta and the Spanish electoral junta, the Supreme Court has also rejected the Socialists's appeal to recount the invalid overseas ballots in Madrid, the gave one more seat to the PP.

The Court ruled that the mere difference in votes, around 1,200, is not a sufficient base for a recount adding that the PSOE didn't present "logical elements, arithmetic data or credible statistical calculations that make it possible to verify, even hypothetically, the relevance of the revision of the votes in the final result and in the attribution of the controversial parliamentary seat".

The final and official results should be published next week.

[Mike88]

Finally López Miras and the Murcian PP have given in and there will be a coalition government with Vox avoiding an electoral repetition, the deadline to form the autonomous government was set on September 7. This week will be voted the investiture for the re-election of the regional president.

Another dumb move by PP. With Feijóo's investiture being already a failure, PP could have force a snap election in order to win a majority and "bury" Vox, thus repeating the fate of C's.

[Mike88]

I think this whole thing is just tiring. The election results showed that Catalan voters, a big majority of them, have had enough of the whole Independence thing. There are other pressing and much more important issues to deal with. And the stubbornness of Junts, and now it seems ERC, on pressing for a the referendum and amnisty shows that these parties have nothing to give to voters other the independence, independence. Not sure if this concerted action by Junts/ERC is just bluff, with them thinking that Sanchéz wants to remain PM so badly that he would do anything and then they would "got him" in their hands. But, that seems too obvious to everyone.

[Mike88]

I have been following by El País and El Mundo but all seems a bit stagnated, with very little moving forward.

[Mike88]

I feel that this coalition announcement is bit of a "propaganda stunt" in order to give the impression that something is actually going on regarding the formation of a Government, when in reality it's not.

[Mike88]

King Juan Carlos not being present I understand, but it's weird Queen Sofia not being present. From what I'm aware she's very popular in Spain. Families, royal or commoner, are complicated.

[Mike88]

As expected, Puigdemont is "stretching the rope" as much as possible and delaying, or rather "derailing", Sanchéz investiture. He now wants a broader amnesty, which from what I understand involves corruption charges, something the PSOE has said it is a "red line".

We'll see how this unfolds.

[Mike88]

As expected, Puigdemont is "stretching the rope" as much as possible and delaying, or rather "derailing", Sanchéz investiture. He now wants a broader amnesty, which from what I understand involves corruption charges, something the PSOE has said it is a "red line".

We'll see how this unfolds.

F**king unbelievable. Catalan nationalists are truly the masters of shooting themselves in the foot.

I think it's pretty clear by now that ERC is the only Catalan nationalist party, while JxC is Puidgemont nationalist.

Puigdemont is completely unpredictable and is no source of stability. If this drags on, I don't know what Sanchéz gains in trying to cling on to power desperately. Being on the hands of someone like Puigdemont is not a solution.

[Mike88]

As expected, Puigdemont is "stretching the rope" as much as possible and delaying, or rather "derailing", Sanchéz investiture. He now wants a broader amnesty, which from what I understand involves corruption charges, something the PSOE has said it is a "red line".

We'll see how this unfolds.

F**king unbelievable. Catalan nationalists are truly the masters of shooting themselves in the foot.

I think it's pretty clear by now that ERC is the only Catalan nationalist party, while JxC is Puidgemont nationalist.

Puigdemont is completely unpredictable and is no source of stability. If this drags on, I don't know what Sanchéz gains in trying to cling on to power desperately. Being on the hands of someone like Puigdemont is not a solution.

Because he is unwilling to leave women and gay people in the hands of Abascal?

Like what Oryxslayer said, that's exactly what he wants. But, the point is that there has to be a moment in which Junts decides either if it is part of the solution or part of the problem. As of now, they are sidding in being part of the problem.

[Mike88]

Iberian Peninsula politics is right now a burning airplane crash.

[Mike88]

Also now that the election is finally officially over, should the Spanish politics discussion be moved to the International General board?

This thread has contained general political discussion while being in this board in the past, so I don't see why this should not continue. On the other hand it might be time for "Spanish elections and politics IV".

Exactly. And even though Sanchéz won the investiture vote, instability and the possibility of a snap election are still hovering in the air. Plus, Galician and Basque Country regional elections are also due during 2024.