Spanish General Election 2011

[JulioMadrid]

Couldn't Rubalcaba stay at the lead of the party ? After all, Rajoy lost twice before winning...

Yeah, but Rajoy never lost by a difference of 4 million votes and he wasn't a member of the most unpopular government ever.

Nobody intellectually honest can claim it was his fault, though.

Exactly that. everybody understands that if we lost by 16 points it was because we could not loose by less. Rubalcaba is the best candidate we had, and he made a decent campaign.


And scoopa, I doubt you're Spanish ("Sierra Nuerte", OMG! the typical error of a non-spanish).

And Rubalcaba didn't loose votes from the centre, he didn't manage to win upset votes in the left. That was the problem. 71% of the people voted this time, while 76% voted in 2008. Zapatero won 11 million votes, while Rajoy has only won 500000 votes more than in 2008. so, what does that mean? IMHO, socialists have stayed at home. The problem was not the centre
And I still can't understand HOW UPyD got 10% in my town. I expected IU to get a formidable result, and they LOST votes from 2008!!! And it's specially interesting considering that the composition of our "Ayuntamiento" is:

PP 14 concejales with 49% of the vote
PSOE 5 concejales with 19% of the vote
Izquierda Independiente (greens, commies and socialists) 5 concejales 17% of the vote
IU 1 concejal and 7% of the vote
UPyD 0 concejales and 4.85% of the vote

Results this Sunday were PP 49.5%, PSOE 26%, UPyD 10.5% and IU 8.5%.
I suppose what happened is that:
-A majority of PP voters still voted PP, and they won the support of some people who didn't vote in may.
-50% of II voters voted PSOE and, obviously, a huge majority of PSOE voters (may) voted PSOE
-IU voters voted IU and some of II voters too.
-UPyD managed to get their 5% of may voters and picked uo some PP support, and a minimal support from ex-PSOE voters.

I have to understand it as soon as possible, so I'll find out who voted UPyD here and why.

___________________________

And to those who claim ZP didn't save Spain, let me remind you...

1-Greece goes down the flames
2-BREAKING NEWS: Spain will come next.
3-Bye bye Ireland!
4-BREAKING NEWS: EIRE FAILS: SPAIN, YOU'RE THE NEXT!!
5-Oh, Portugal...
6-BREAKING NEWS: SPAIN CAN'T SURVIVE IF ITS NEIGHBOR HAS BEEN "RESCUED"
7-Here comesa Italy, which is at more risk  than Spain of being rescued!!

Zapatero did what he needed to. And he did so in May, 2010. Thanks, President!

[redcommander]

Does anyone know if any ministers or cabinet officials lost their seats? Usually with a loss that big you would expect that to happen.

[Californian Tony]

Does anyone know if any ministers or cabinet officials lost their seats? Usually with a loss that big you would expect that to happen.

Actually I think it's pretty hard with blocked-list PR, because no matter how destroyed a party gets, it most probably still gets at least 1 MP in each constituency.

[JulioMadrid]

Does anyone know if any ministers or cabinet officials lost their seats? Usually with a loss that big you would expect that to happen.

No minister lost his/her seat;) They are usually number 1 or 2 in the lists for Congress, so it's almost impossible (the minister of interior could have lost his seat if PP had got more than 65% of the vote in Zamora, but he didn't).

[Sibboleth]

Does anyone know if any ministers or cabinet officials lost their seats? Usually with a loss that big you would expect that to happen.

No minister lost his/her seat;) They are usually number 1 or 2 in the lists for Congress, so it's almost impossible (the minister of interior could have lost his seat if PP had got more than 65% of the vote in Zamora, but he didn't).

Yes; this is one of the issues sometimes raised against closed list PR (especially in Italy during the DC era).

[Californian Tony]

Does anyone know if any ministers or cabinet officials lost their seats? Usually with a loss that big you would expect that to happen.

No minister lost his/her seat;) They are usually number 1 or 2 in the lists for Congress, so it's almost impossible (the minister of interior could have lost his seat if PP had got more than 65% of the vote in Zamora, but he didn't).

Yes; this is one of the issues sometimes raised against closed list PR (especially in Italy during the DC era).

Didn't Italy have preferential voting back then ?

[Χahar]

Does anyone know if any ministers or cabinet officials lost their seats? Usually with a loss that big you would expect that to happen.

No minister lost his/her seat;) They are usually number 1 or 2 in the lists for Congress, so it's almost impossible (the minister of interior could have lost his seat if PP had got more than 65% of the vote in Zamora, but he didn't).

Yes; this is one of the issues sometimes raised against closed list PR (especially in Italy during the DC era).

Didn't Italy have preferential voting back then ?

No. There was a very limited form of open-list PR, but nothing other than that.

[Iannis]

Couldn't Rubalcaba stay at the lead of the party ? After all, Rajoy lost twice before winning...

Yeah, but Rajoy never lost by a difference of 4 million votes and he wasn't a member of the most unpopular government ever.

Nobody intellectually honest can claim it was his fault, though.

Exactly that. everybody understands that if we lost by 16 points it was because we could not loose by less. Rubalcaba is the best candidate we had, and he made a decent campaign.


And scoopa, I doubt you're Spanish ("Sierra Nuerte", OMG! the typical error of a non-spanish).

And Rubalcaba didn't loose votes from the centre, he didn't manage to win upset votes in the left. That was the problem. 71% of the people voted this time, while 76% voted in 2008. Zapatero won 11 million votes, while Rajoy has only won 500000 votes more than in 2008. so, what does that mean? IMHO, socialists have stayed at home. The problem was not the centre
And I still can't understand HOW UPyD got 10% in my town. I expected IU to get a formidable result, and they LOST votes from 2008!!! And it's specially interesting considering that the composition of our "Ayuntamiento" is:

PP 14 concejales with 49% of the vote
PSOE 5 concejales with 19% of the vote
Izquierda Independiente (greens, commies and socialists) 5 concejales 17% of the vote
IU 1 concejal and 7% of the vote
UPyD 0 concejales and 4.85% of the vote

Results this Sunday were PP 49.5%, PSOE 26%, UPyD 10.5% and IU 8.5%.
I suppose what happened is that:
-A majority of PP voters still voted PP, and they won the support of some people who didn't vote in may.
-50% of II voters voted PSOE and, obviously, a huge majority of PSOE voters (may) voted PSOE
-IU voters voted IU and some of II voters too.
-UPyD managed to get their 5% of may voters and picked uo some PP support, and a minimal support from ex-PSOE voters.

I have to understand it as soon as possible, so I'll find out who voted UPyD here and why.

___________________________

And to those who claim ZP didn't save Spain, let me remind you...

1-Greece goes down the flames
2-BREAKING NEWS: Spain will come next.
3-Bye bye Ireland!
4-BREAKING NEWS: EIRE FAILS: SPAIN, YOU'RE THE NEXT!!
5-Oh, Portugal...
6-BREAKING NEWS: SPAIN CAN'T SURVIVE IF ITS NEIGHBOR HAS BEEN "RESCUED"
7-Here comesa Italy, which is at more risk  than Spain of being rescued!!

Zapatero did what he needed to. And he did so in May, 2010. Thanks, President!

Abstension rose only by 2%, not 5%, so abstension explains in minimal part the PSOE loss. PP gained votes also directly from PSOE, especially in Andalucia and Extremadura, where there were no local parties and the PP gain was huge. It's true that UPyD "stole" votes also to PP, especially in Madrid region and in the Valencia i.e, but PP didn't lost many votes because it also took them directly from PSOE.

[republicanism]

Well this whole election went a bit worse than I expected. At least much of the PSOE losses was absorbed by IU and the regionalists.

[JulioMadrid]

Well this whole election went a bit worse than I expected. At least much of the PSOE losses was absorbed by IU and the regionalists.

yes, only some people were expecting polls to be right. That's because polls here suck and because the left usually underperforms. but the result may have been good for us after all... If P didn't win an outright majority, they could have blamed us by not collaborating with them in the future...

[freefair]

AFAIK Reigonalism doesn't all work against the PP, if anything it's biggest force, the CiU,  is economically to the right of them in terms of taxation. The CC seem also pretty right wing.

[Hashemite]

AFAIK Reigonalism doesn't all work against the PP, if anything the big ones, the CiU and CC are economically to the right of them.

I don't exactly catch your train of thought, but if I guess where you're going with that, then, I'll say it again, there is little overlap in terms of electorates between the PP and right-regionalists (except the CC, which is not a classical regionalist party) because economic considerations are not the main issues at stake between the two. But I don't understand what you said.

I also wouldn't classify the CC as economically right-wing, given that the party's old platform plank - to get the government to send more money to the islands - is not exactly the epitome of economic liberalism.

[freefair]

Having bookmarked your website I can definitively say you are the expert. I'm certainly not going to argue with you on the voter base, but I imagine hypothetically they could work very well together in a Central government coalition.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

On Spain, yea, Hash knows more than I do for sure, France too, and maybe the two of us could duke it out about who knows more about countries like Germany - but you'll find here at the Atlas that there are tonnes of people who know tonnes of things about all sorts of elections the world over.

[Χahar]

I also wouldn't classify the CC as economically right-wing, given that the party's old platform plank - to get the government to send more money to the islands - is not exactly the epitome of economic liberalism.

Right-wing doesn't necessarily mean liberal, of course.

[Progressive Realist]

I also wouldn't classify the CC as economically right-wing, given that the party's old platform plank - to get the government to send more money to the islands - is not exactly the epitome of economic liberalism.

Right-wing doesn't necessarily mean liberal, of course.

Indeed. Right-wing could be supportive of monarchism, liberalism, even some social democrats are right-wing.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

I used to be a right-wing Social Democrat before I became a left-wing Progressive Capitalist

[Californian Tony]

I used to be a right-wing Social Democrat before I became a left-wing Progressive Capitalist

Now I don't get it.

Unless you are using a wrong definition of the word, of course.

[Leftbehind]

I used to be a right-wing Social Democrat before I became a left-wing Progressive Capitalist

[Sibboleth]

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

What exactly is this UPyD anyway. And why is IU and ICV so close?

[Verily]

What exactly is this UPyD anyway.

It's a sort of centrist Euroliberal party, stated ideology somewhat like the UK Lib Dems or Canadian Liberals. It's very personalist around its leader, though, like MoDem in France, but more successful mostly due to the electoral system. A big part of its platform is unflinching unitarianism (more robust than mere federalism), though. They're very opposed to any kind of regionalism or devolution, let alone independence movements (particularly the Basque separatists, but also the Catalonian nationalists, Galician nationalists, etc.).

And why is IU and ICV so close?

They're both very left-wing? IU descends from the more "liberal" strain of western European communism and is consequently very much allied with the green movement. And ICV is of course on the left side of the green spectrum (more like the German Greens than the Canadian ones).

[Californian Tony]

Magnificent maps !


Why did ERC run in Valencia and in the Baleares ? And EAC in Madrid ?

[Hashemite]

All this proves that nobody reads my blog...

They're both very left-wing? IU descends from the more "liberal" strain of western European communism and is consequently very much allied with the green movement. And ICV is of course on the left side of the green spectrum (more like the German Greens than the Canadian ones).

I don't know in which alternate reality the IU is from the "liberal" stream of communism, considering the Eurocommunists were actually expelled from the PCE in 1982. Also, do understand that the 'green' movement in Spain is a total joke, and the IU doesn't give a rat's ass about the greens who are useless and only ally with IU because IU wants to and gives them a few spots on the various lists.

ICV may have embraced the green stuff recently and all, but ICV isn't an actual green party. It was founded as some of sort of coalition of the remnants of the local commies and various other groups. The green stuff was added for show, more or less, though it has embraced the green stuff and all. ICV and IU's alliance is more for tactical reasons on both sides rather than any imaginary proximity between the "greens" and IU.

Why did ERC run in Valencia and in the Baleares ? And EAC in Madrid ?

All this, again, is on my blog which nobody reads... but Catalan nationalists of the radical ERC style have an irredentist vision of Catalonia (Paisos Catalans) which includes Valencia and the Balearics, both of which speak a local variant of Catalan. If you're curious, my Guide's entry on the Valencian Community explains in far more detail the contentious dispute between pan-Catalanists and blaverists in Valencia.

FAC seems to have run in Madrid in a failed attempt to get far-right votes.

[Californian Tony]

I'm eager to finish reading your extraordinary guide, but you have to recognize it requires to have quite a bit of time left.