Spanish elections and politics IV / European Parliament campaign, diplomatic crisis with Argentina

[Zinneke]

Who is likely to succeed Sanchez as psoe leader?

Spain has outside of a technicality never had a female PM so one could imagine several of his  impressive  PSOE deputy PMs are his natural successors. But if this experiment fails badly then it'll be someone from the Garcia-Page wing, more deep-statish, possibly more adapted to playing the game of the PP.

[Zinneke]

Who is likely to succeed Sanchez as psoe leader?

Spain has outside of a technicality never had a female PM so one could imagine several of his  impressive  PSOE deputy PMs are his natural successors. But if this experiment fails badly then it'll be someone from the Garcia-Page wing, more deep-statish, possibly more adapted to playing the game of the PP.

technicality?

I believe referring to this case?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Teresa_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_la_Vega#Political_career

Fernández de la Vega was the first woman to take on the functions of the prime minister in the history of Spanish democracy, when, on 24 April 2004, during the first official visit abroad of Spain's Prime Minister, Zapatero, she presided over the Council of Ministers.

Indeed

[Zinneke]

Aaaawww yeah Mass Tourism destroying European heritage in every city centre so that we are basically reduced to becoming America and China's Disneyland is soooooo funny!

Times like these I'm glad I live in a sh**thole

[Zinneke]

Anyway in all seriousness the Comuns probably did this as part of the horse trading going on at federal level between ERC and Yolanda Diaz over new labour laws. But their reasons are also about the shady Hard Rock Tarragona café ( to be built on land owned by la Caixa, a notoriously squeaky clean bank ahem) as well as the symbolism of it as I alluded to in my drunken post. Barcelona’s municipal elections were centered around these kind of issues, like potential expansion of the airport, more golf courses, more tourism – they also lost the Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix to Ayuso and clearly some elements of the Catalan political class really want to have the habitual face off with Madrid as to which community can destroy itself the fastest with overdevelopment and insane white elephant projects not even directed towards their own citizens, playing out of the Rita Barbera textbook while her former city Valencia, a city once known for being full of “canis” (chavs), slowly overtakes both as the most liveable for standard workers who want some culture and activity but without the excessive rents, tourists (by spanish standards), disruptive building projects….oh wait no, forget that last part, the city of El Cid just elected its own PP goon so expect another White Elephant futuristic city designed by flamboyant La Caixa-funded corrupt architects built just for Americans to soil themselves at in the summer while youth unemployment continues to be high due to overdependence on tourism as an industry…point being from this rant, Comuns are right to oppose such projects because Spanish people might actually want stable jobs and not the seasonal instability of tourism as a key factor in their GDP mix? 
It suits Aragonès to end this too for a bunch of reasons. For one Puigdemont hasn’t been pardoned yet, he has had to act quickly as Junts entire campaign, evidenced by their list name, is centered around his case and the other exiles (I think people underestimate how Puigdemont has gained a certain level of fame and infamy in Catalonia by being the “exiled President”). The hope is that Puigdemont will actually stay exiled before a vote can happen, so before the amnesty law passes. Puigdemont may be brave though as we have seen
Aragonès might also be gambling that with the corona mask procurement issues that Ayuso is encountering, Illa’s handling of the overall pandemic will also come under scrutiny and damage his brand, but this is far fetched as it looks like PSC will win handily.


Finally, Aragonès recognises he is leading a slowly sinking ship so would rather jump that sink a slow death. 

[Zinneke]

I honestly, sincerely cannot name one meaningful ideological difference between Sumar and Podemos. All I see is Podemos' perception of Yolanda Diaz as being too "moderate" and too willing to collaborate with Sánchez and PSOE; and Sumar's dismissal of Podemos as being either too caught in the past or being too subservient to Pablo Iglesias.

So yeah, it does seem like a personal feud that leads into an irrational situation. It's increasingly absurd to see so many Spanish left-wing parties to the point of having coalitions within coalitions (like IU within Podemos and now Sumar).

I see a difference: Sumar (rightfully) don't pander to insane anti-democratic regimes just because they use leftist symbology. Obviously in a regional election it doesn't matter much but it's a good indicator for me if I think the people running a left-wing party are arseholes or not.

(And Sumar are naive on such issues too, but not compared to Iglesias).

[Zinneke]

Ayuso is also under serious pressure for her partner's dealings. The two party system is rotten to the core when these two make it to extremely powerful executive offices.

[Zinneke]

Or it could be just classic Spanish lawfare. But I'm sure the Spanish legal expert will again lecture me on how great their judicial system is. I mean the organisation prosecuting Sanchez's wife is your classic ultra-nationalist group that openly boasted that "if they went after Ayuso we'll go after his wife". Going to jail for misuse of funds also seems to only apply if you're Catalan.

[Zinneke]

I'm not so sure...the astroturfing campaigns claiming Bildu and ERC will organise a coup seem to work well on youth (+ a growing amount of Latin Americans ) especially.

One good poll doesn't change the fact that this term could be marred by incessant negotiations with Puigdemont and his crew too.

[Zinneke]

Don't rule out the possibility of a pro corruption PSC-Junts pact.

The Hard Rock coalition.

[Zinneke]

Don't rule out the possibility of a pro corruption PSC-Junts pact.

The Hard Rock coalition.

Counterpoint. It maybe good that Spain (and China) overbuilds even if some of overbuilding is bad to make up all of the countries that underbuilds.
Second Hard Rock is owned by Seminole tribe.

 It is already well built up as it is. I'd like Spain and other countries to build an entire new city (even a microstate like Luxembourg could do with a new city). But the capital is going towards tourist appartments that are more secure investments than working class people and that the owner can access if they like to retreat for a while.

Anyway, PSC if they govern with a tripartite will have to concede on the issues of overdevelopment (expansion of Barcelona-El Prat Airport, Hard Rock café and other developments in Tarragona). Comuns mostly run on those kind of issues.

What the heck were the voter flows like? Why did Puigdemont's party gain support while the separatist parties on the left lost instead? I guess C's voters probably moved to PP, but I'm having some trouble making sense of this all because I know little about Catalonian politics.

Pro-independence losses were due to the bad results of the left-wing parties, specifically the ERC collapse. Probably we'll see some vote transfer analyses in the following days.  My guess is that most of the ERC and CUP losses went to abstention, but ERC losses also went to Junts and the PSC. It'd be relevant to know the size of ERC transfers to the PSC (for sure the amount is lower compared to general elections,  but still sizeable)

El Pais says that unionists abstained more last election and turned out more this one, although maybe not necessarily on the constitutional issue but rather issues like immigration. PP voters were clearly unhappy with the offering last time out or not bothered.

[Zinneke]

So what is the likeliest government to emerge from this election? Seems to me that the most obvious would have been PSC+ERC+SUP - the fact that pro-independence parties have less than half the vote kind of undercuts any claims by Junts to being in government - but ERC sys they don't want to be in government - so do they passively support a PSC minority government from outside?

I would gamble on a PSC-Comuns minority government with ERC voting the budget.

If I were Catalan I'd demand a PSC-PP-AC government of national unity and stream the cabinet meetings on OnlyFans. The Sagrada Familia would be paid off by the end of the month.

Strong result for the PSC, but I am here to mark the official passing of Ciudadanos, which hit the classic threshold of getting fewer votes than the Animalist Party (as well as fewer than there were blank ballots or null ballots). Won't be missed.

In their last electoral meeting before the vote they had more journalists than activists present.

[Zinneke]

It is interesting (although unsurprising) that people with a foreign background are slightly more pro-independence than people from the rest of Spain. What I find really peculiar, even if probably driven by small sample sizes, is the other chart that says among people with a foreign background support for independence decreases with income, contrary to the trend in all other background categories where richer people are more supportive of independence.

One of the big Nationalist conspiracy/narrative that is spoken only in the lightest of dog whistles is that Spain encourages rich Latin Americans to invest, study and/or live in Barcelona (with the passport that comes quicker than other demographics remember) to eventually Hispanicize the region as a whole.

[Zinneke]

Not to justify Milei's erratic and often childish behavior, but if Sánchez's own ministers are going to be the ones hurling insults at him first... can the Spanish government really claim a moral high ground here? I'm not that convinced myself.

We get it, you're the kind of "liberal" Supreme Court loving guy who concern trolls in favour of Milei because of his edginess.

Tell again why the misuse of funds court case against the Catalan Separatists put them behind bars while Ayuso is still a free woman. I'm still all eyes and ears.

[Zinneke]

Milei doesn't believe in international customs, he believes in survival of the fittest. If I were Sanchez I'd shoot his airplane down. We saw how Argentina managed in the 70s against the hairy woman, they're a joke army. Show libertarians what survival of the fittest really means

[Zinneke]

Make sure "QUE MIRAS BOBO" is played on the announcer as he goes into the sea, so that delusional country goes back to worshipping a crackhead and a roided dwarf while they're at it

[Zinneke]

https://www.eldiario.es/politica/espana-retira-embajadora-buenos-aires-nuevos-insultos-milei_1_11383426.html

Gigachad Sanchez is recalling his ambassador from Buenos Aires "permanently". Now its time to tell the Mercosur countries it's either without Argentina or no deal at all, and that Spain will veto any trade deal with Argentina. he should also implement a law slowing down the process of Argentines being able to get Spanish passports compared to the fast track Latin American system.


(saying you are removing your ambassador permanently, is, in all seriousness, a pretty insane escalation)

[Zinneke]

I apologise to Lumine who I thought was Mimoha, I sometimes get posters confused

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/therealbuni/status/1792542355209203975

It's absolutely bananas that Sánchez is withdrawing the ambassador from Buenos Aires because Milei hurt his feelings after months of insults towards Milei from members of his government and interference in the Argentine election.

Russia is invading its neighbour, Israel is committing a genocide, Morocco directly challenges Spanish territorial integrity and in none of these cases does Sánchez withdraw his ambassador. But Milei calling someone investigated for corruption "corrupt" is too far.

cry harder

[Zinneke]

Not to justify Milei's erratic and often childish behavior, but if Sánchez's own ministers are going to be the ones hurling insults at him first... can the Spanish government really claim a moral high ground here? I'm not that convinced myself.

We get it, you're the kind of "liberal" Supreme Court loving guy who concern trolls in favour of Milei because of his edginess.

Tell again why the misuse of funds court case against the Catalan Separatists put them behind bars while Ayuso is still a free woman. I'm still all eyes and ears.

None of the legal experts who were cheerleading the political statement of the Supreme Court have answered my question. Ayuso continues to be mired in corruption scandals...


Btw after Hard Rock café in Catalonia take a look at the protests in Mallorca. Puts things in to perspective.

[Zinneke]

Yes, he is famous for his conspiracy theories and has thousands of followers in telegram. Consensus is that he is eating into Vox and drawing from usual abstentionists. My Spanish friends think that he will get seats.

is he the guy who made that ai generator image of the queen claiming he was in a affair with her?

Pretty sure that was olakawandi