Spanish elections and politics

[Oryxslayer]

Was the Cs's growth more a result of people expressing frustrations with Rajoy's government? And now that there is stability people are ditching the party?

Also partly the fact that the Catalonia issue is no longer the hot  button issue it was 6 months ago. C's are the ideal party in the eyes of right-wing Spanish when it comes to Catalonia.

[Former President tack50]

The leader of Podemos in Catalonia and of the CatComú coalition, Xavier Domenech has announced that he is leaving his seat in the Catalan parliament and leaving politics altogether. Among the reasons, apparently he is leaving because of the bad result in the 2017 election (not that it made García Albiol in PP resign with a much worse result). He also claims to be tired.

He will go back to his old job as a university professor.

I think he will be missed. I didn't particularly like him nor hate him though any replacement for him will certainly be a lot weaker (except for possibly Colau)



In other notes, this 31st of August was the day that more jobs were destroyed in Spain ever, with more than 300 000 jobs lost. August is always a bad month and Fridays are always a bad day for jobs in Spain (tourism and all) but this seems to be bad news nontheless. The economy is certainly weaker than a year ago.

I could certainly see PSOE having come into power at just the wrong moment economically speaking.



Also, the Sánchez budget will have to wait. The Senate, with a PP majority, blocked the debt ceiling a while ago. Sánchez tried to pass a law through the emergency procedure in a single reading to remove this power from the otherwise useless Senate (power that was given to the Senate in 2012 by PP). However procedural stuff in Congress has rejected this so it will have to pass as an ordinary law and with the possibility of ammendments. So we won't have a budget until at least 6 months from now at the very least.

At this point I'm wondering if we'll ever see a budget being passed on time again.

[Velasco]

Cs leader Albert Rivera threatens to break the confidence and supply agreement with PSOE in Andalusia within two days. Rivera alleges breach on the part of premier Susana Diaz and urges her to fulfill some conditions (electoral reform and others). Susana Díaz says that two days are little time, accuses Rivera of electioneering and transmits signals that she could call elections this autumn. There have been rumours in previous months on early elections in Andalusia. In case Susana Díaz calls, a new electoral cycle starts in Spain.

[Former President tack50]

Today the Sánchez government has officially passed the 100 day mark. Nothing interesting related to that but  I guess we can now see the difference with the Rajoy government.

Apparently mayor of Madrid Manuela Carmena has announced that she is running for reelection. While this would generally be good news for the left (I personally think Madrid is lost if Carmena had retired), it's caused a bit of trouble inside Podemos and IU since she has announced that she will run not as a party (whether officially "Unidos Podemos" or an instrumental party like Ahora Madrid in 2015) but instead as an "electors list"; basically running as an independent without any links to political parties. PSOE has said that they won't take part on the Carmena electors list.

In fact she has said that she will run for mayor even if she doesn't have the support of Podemos and IU and doesn't want to go through a primaries process. In any case I don't think Podemos/IU will try and run against Carmena.

Finally, we have a new poll. And for the first time, a pollster other than El Español shows Vox getting a seat!

GAD3 for ABC

PSOE 27% (106)
PP 25,9% (106)
Cs 20,6% (68)
UP 15,9% (43)
Vox 1,5% (1)

ERC 2,8% (11)
PDeCat 1,9% (7)
PNV 1,1% (6)
Bildu 0,7% (2)

CC isn't shown, so I'm going to assume they get around 0.2% of the vote and no seats.

[Velasco]

Apparently mayor of Madrid Manuela Carmena has announced that she is running for reelection. While this would generally be good news for the left (I personally think Madrid is lost if Carmena had retired), it's caused a bit of trouble inside Podemos and IU since she has announced that she will run not as a party (whether officially "Unidos Podemos" or an instrumental party like Ahora Madrid in 2015) but instead as an "electors list"; basically running as an independent without any links to political parties. PSOE has said i that they won't take part on the Carmena electors list.

In fact she has said that she will run for mayor even if she doesn't have the support of Podemos and IU and doesn't want to go through a primaries process. In any case I don't think Podemos/IU will try and run against Carmena.

Manuela Carmena is a good mayor that has reduced the astronomic local debt left by the PP governments. Also, she is taking steps to solve a number of problems (pollution, housing, etcetera) and she has a quite decent approval rate. Podemos and IU have their interests as political organizations, but people in both parties (and in the PSOE too) know that Manuela Carmena is the only hope for the Left to retain a city that otherwise is leaning to the Right. Carmena has been hesitating due to some health problems (she is 74) and some conflicts within her heterogeneous governing group. She is an independent and wants to run in an independent list ("voters grouping", a legal formula slightly different from the "instrumental party" Ahora Madrid) where people from Podemos, IU and other parties and organizations is invited to join. Manuela Carmena wants her close collaborators (Rita Maestre from Podemos and others) to be on the top of the list, as well she would like to get rid of some councillors that created problems (mostly people from Ganemos and the former treasurer, who is from IU). Pablo Iglesias would like to place loyals like retired general Julio Rodríguez, but it's likely that he will concede most of the Carmena's demands. On the other hand, the candidate of Unidos Podemos in the region of Madrid will be ïñigo Errejón and the coincidence between him and Carmena is total.

In other news, Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias are in honeymoon. This week the PM and the leader of Podemos signed a draft deal that could serve as governing blueprint

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/09/07/inenglish/1536310023_380435.html

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Cs broke officially the confidence and supply agreement with the PSOE of Andalusia on Friday, in a meeting of the national executive held in Málaga, This will lead inevitably to snap elections in this southern region opening the new electoral cycle in Spain. Local, Regional and European elections are scheduled next year. General elections could take place in autumn next year in case Pedro Sánchez cannot pass the budget and stretches the timing.

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Funnily enough, this pollster works for La Vanguardia too. I suspect the results of the polls for ABC and the Barcelona newpaper might differ a bit, which shouldn't be very surprising given that often polls reflect the customer's desires.

EDIT: The decision of Carmena to run in her own terms has raised criticism in IU, Ganemos and the anticapitalist faction of Podemos. In other words, those factions within Ahora Madrid that have confronted Carmena. Her announcement has been welcomed by councillors and people in the mainstream factions of Podemos.

[Former President tack50]

For a government with only 101 days in office, there sure have been a lot of ministers with scandals. First the Máxim Huerta thing and now this.

Apparently the minister of healthcare, Carmen Montón, also has an irregular masters degree at the same university as the PP politicians (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos). In this case she apparently got the masters degree even though half of the subjects were already over when she entered the course.

Honestly, I feel she should resign, not (just) for getting a masters degree fraudulently, but for doing a masters degree in gender studies. That alone shows she doesn't have good judgement xD

https://www.eldiario.es/politica/DIRECTO-master-Monton-claves-reacciones_13_813098683.html

[Velasco]

Carmen Montón should resign immediately, since she has failed this morning in providing explanations for the many irregularities reported by journalists from eldiario.es (the same who unveiled the master irregularities of PP politicians). Pablo Casado should have never run for the PP leadership, because he got his master degree without studying.

I'm highly dissapointed at Carmen Montón, who held the Healthcare portfolio on the Valencian regional government and made a good job. She must leave. Said this, WTF with gender studies? Are you a male chauvinist or what?

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

That may be stupid question to ask, especially taking into consideration that Spanish politics recently become stupidly dynamic and interesting: how is PACMA doing these days? And VOX?

[Former President tack50]

Carmen Montón should resign immediately, since she has failed this morning in providing explanations for the many irregularities reported by journalists from eldiario.es (the same who unveiled the master irregularities of PP politicians). Pablo Casado should have never run for the PP leadership, because he got his master degree without studying.

I'm highly dissapointed at Carmen Montón, who held the Healthcare portfolio on the Valencian regional government and made a good job. She must leave. Said this, WTF with gender studies? Are you a male chauvinist or what?

It's a joke based on that the "gender studes" degree is often considered worthless. Not on gender studies or feminism themselves.

I do agree she has to leave for basically the same reasons, not that (which was a joke).

Also, former deputy PM Soraya Saénz de Santamaría is leaving politics altogether after her defeat in the PP primary.

http://www.elmundo.es/espana/2018/09/10/5b9662e9ca474183788b4623.html

[Former President tack50]

That may be stupid question to ask, especially taking into consideration that Spanish politics recently become stupidly dynamic and interesting: how is PACMA doing these days? And VOX?

Who knows? From what I can tell Vox is probably around the 1.x% mark and on the edge of getting a seat. PACMA is around the same in the popular vote but with a much lower chance of getting a seat since it's more spread out.

In any case the snap Andalusian elections and especially the 2019 European elections will determine whether they get a chance at a seat or not.

[Former President tack50]

Well, minister Carmen Montón has finally resigned, one day after the accusations surfaced. today more accusations against her happened, this time of plagiarism. Her resignation is a bit weird since up until this evening PM Sánchez was still supporting her.

In any case, I guess the fact that there were even more accusations, plus internal pressure inside PSOE (even if Sánchez himself wasn't in favour of her resigning, many in the party did) forced her.

Good riddance IMO. This government certainly feels cleaner just because of how these scandals have been handled.

[swl]

Seems like every Spanish politician is being accused of cheating on their master/doctorate thesis. Funny and ridiculous in the same time.

[Former President tack50]

Yup. Today Rivera accused PM Pedro Sánchez of cheating in his doctorate thesis.

Sánchez's doctorate thesis is quite controversial, since it's technically public, but access to it is extremely restricted, you have to go to the university in person to see it, you are only given a limited amount of time and you can't take any photocopies or pictures.

So according to some rumours Sánchez's thesis is plagiarized, and even just the fact that access to it is very limited (when Sánchez himself could simply make it public) makes a lot of people believe something is off.

Also according to specialists, Sánchez's thesis seems very basic, which at the very least wouldn't justify the grade he got (cum laude)

Though apparently the university has done a first check to see if it was plagarized and the result was that it wasn't.

If anyone cares, it's officially registered in the respective department of the ministry of education, but the thesis itself is not there, just a 1 paragraph summary.

https://www.educacion.gob.es/teseo/mostrarRef.do?ref=1091215

[Velasco]

Pedro Sánchez accepts the digital release of his thesis and will sue ABC, in case the newspaper doesn't rectify. Sánchez was very angry with Rivera yesterday and accused the Cs leader of "turning politics in a quagmire". Possibly Rivera wants to pressure Casado indirectly.

 Judge Llarena will be one of the members of the Supreme Court that will decide there's enough evidence to open an investigation to Casado on the charges of prevarication (as a collaborator) and "improper bribery" for having benefitted of an unjust administrative resolution (the master degree). In other words, if the investigation will move forward if the judges of the high court consider there are enough signs to suspect that Casado's master was a gift and the PP leader was aware of it and collaborated  with the corrupt public officials.

 Llarena, on the other hand, is the same judge that prosecutes the case against Catalan separatist politicians, alleging rebellion. Puigdemont has sued Llarena in Belgium, accusing Spain of being a "delinquent state". Spanish government will handle defence costs to Llarena, after some controversy and criticism from the Right.

Meanwhile there was the usual massive demonstration in Barcelona to commemorate the Diada (Catalan national celebration) on September 11.

[Velasco]

According to the monthly Celeste-Tel poll released by eldiario.es, PP is growing at the expense of Cs while PSOE halts its growth

PSOE 28.2%, PP 26.4%, Cs 18.7%, UP 17.1%, Others 9.5%

https://www.eldiario.es/politica/PSOE-ascenso-PP-creciendo-Ciudadanos_0_813669536.html

[Velasco]

BREAKING

Spanish Congress supports a legislative decree approved by the government in August in order to exhume and move away the Franco's remains from the Valle de los Caídos memorial.

The vote went as follows: 172 in favour, 164 abstentions and 2 against. All PP and Cs deputies abstained, except two PP members who voted against alleging mistake.

On the legislative decree

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/08/24/inenglish/1535097265_662248.html

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[Former President tack50]

Also today in Congress the reform of the Canary Islands statute of autonomy was passed. I looked it up and it's the first passed statute reform for any autonomous community since 2011. Technically it still has to go through the Senate, but it should pass easily unless Sánchez calls a snap election for some reason.

https://www.canarias7.es/politica/el-congreso-aprueba-la-propuesta-de-reforma-del-estatuto-de-canarias-DG5484498

Among the key features, the islands will get more self government, the special taxation regime (REF) will be more protected and the islands will get a new electoral system. Other minor but important features are that the premier of the islands gets the ability to call snap elections independently of all other regions (Valencia already has this iirc) and also gets the abilty to rule by decree, like the Prime Minister (not sure if any other place has this).

The new electoral system, while still bad, is a slight improvement over the old one. The Canary Islands parliament will go up to 70 seats, from the current 60. Of these 10 new seats, 1 will be assigned to the island of Fuerteventura (which before had 7 seats compared to La Palma's 8, even though it had a higher population). The other 9 will be assigned in a regional constituency.

The electoral barriers have also been lowered to 15% on a single island or 4% in the entire archipielago (down from 30% and 6% previously). Had this system been used for the 2015 regional elections, the new result would have been:

CC: 20 (+2)
PSOE: 17 (+2)
PP: 14 (+2)
Podemos: 9 (+2)
NCa: 5 (-)
ASG: 3 (-)
Cs: 2 (+2)

Viable coalitions: CC+PSOE; CC+PP+Cs; CC+PP+ASG

So yeah, CC still wins while coming 3rd in the popular vote. And the new system still has the smaller islands overrepresented. So while an improvement (particularly lowering the electoral barriers), it's far from great.

The vote in Congress was:

Yes: PP, PSOE, CC, NCa, PDECat, PNV
No: Podemos
Abstaining: Cs, ERC

[Velasco]

Had this system been used for the 2015 regional elections, the new result would have been:

CC: 20 (+2)
PSOE: 17 (+2)
PP: 14 (+2)
Podemos: 9 (+2)
NCa: 5 (-)
ASG: 3 (-)
Cs: 2 (+2)

How did you calculate this allocation of seats? As far as I know the draft does not detail the system of allocation of the regional list seats. Maybe it's better than nothing, but this reform s botched.

The affair of the Pedro Sánchez thesis is something like a somekescreen, useful for Rivera in order to regain protagonism and to divert the focus from important things. I have heard that the rivals of Pedro Sánchez in the PSOE already examined it and didn't find signs of plagiarism.

For instance, yesterday's vote was belated but historic. The abstention of PP and Cs is very idifficult to justify. I think the Spanish Right won't be tretaed well by posterity on this issue

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/09/13/inenglish/1536852062_932166.html

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Franco's family is opposed

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[Antonio the Sixth]

BREAKING

Spanish Congress supports a legislative decree approved by the government in August in order to exhume and move away the Franco's remains from the Valle de los Caídos memorial.

The vote went as follows: 172 in favour, 164 abstentions and 2 against. All PP and Cs deputies abstained, except two PP members who voted against alleging mistake.

On the legislative decree

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/08/24/inenglish/1535097265_662248.html

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Wonderful news.

[Former President tack50]

Had this system been used for the 2015 regional elections, the new result would have been:

CC: 20 (+2)
PSOE: 17 (+2)
PP: 14 (+2)
Podemos: 9 (+2)
NCa: 5 (-)
ASG: 3 (-)
Cs: 2 (+2)

How did you calculate this allocation of seats? As far as I know the draft does not detail the system of allocation of the regional list seats. Maybe it's better than nothing, but this reform s botched.

[/quote]

From what I can tell the regional list seats are just treated like any other constituency, so I just asigned the 9 seats proportionally to the regional results (iirc it ended up something like PSOE 2, PP 2, CC 2, Podemos 2, NC 1).

Other than that I just recalculated the results in each island taking into account what Cs got (since they would now be above the threshold), and the extra seat in Fuerteventura.

Of course if the extra regional seats are meant as leveling seats (as opposed to just an extra constituency) that would be harder to calculate, but it would also be better.

As for the Franco stuff, I don't think it will cost many votes to PP/Cs (if at all), but it might make it harder for them to take centrist voters and distances them from literally every other party in Congress.

[Velasco]

Had this system been used for the 2015 regional elections, the new result would have been:

CC: 20 (+2)
PSOE: 17 (+2)
PP: 14 (+2)
Podemos: 9 (+2)
NCa: 5 (-)
ASG: 3 (-)
Cs: 2 (+2)

How did you calculate this allocation of seats? As far as I know the draft does not detail the system of allocation of the regional list seats. Maybe it's better than nothing, but this reform s botched.

From what I can tell the regional list seats are just treated like any other constituency, so I just asigned the 9 seats proportionally to the regional results (iirc it ended up something like PSOE 2, PP 2, CC 2, Podemos 2, NC 1).

Other than that I just recalculated the results in each island taking into account what Cs got (since they would now be above the threshold), and the extra seat in Fuerteventura.

Of course if the extra regional seats are meant as leveling seats (as opposed to just an extra constituency) that would be harder to calculate, but it would also be better. [/quote]

I'm afraid the draft does not specify if the regional seats will be calculated as levelling seats (they should) or as an extra constituency. Possibly it will be the second option by default. A way to calculate the possible result with levelling seats is treating the Canary Islands as a single constituency and then subtract the seats each party wins in the insular constituencies.

Results in insular constituencies (61 seats)*

CC 18, PSOE 15, PP 12, Podemos 7, NC 4, ASG 3, Cs 2

*Compared with the actual result  Cs wins 1 seat in Tenerife and 1 in Gran Canaria; CC loses 1 seat in Tenerife to Cs and gains the extra seat in Fuertecentura; NC loses 1 seat in Gran Canaria to Cs

Canary Islands as a single constituency (70 seats, D'Hondt)

PSOE 16, PP 15, CC 15, Podemos 12, NC 8, Cs 4, ASG 0

The problem is that CC and ASG won 3 seats more in the insular constituencies than the seats allocated in the second calculation, so we would need  overhang seats that are not present in the electoral reform.

Difference between second and first calculations:

PSOE 1, PP 3, CC -3, Podemos 5, NC 4, Cs 2, ASG -3 (Total: 9)

After some calculations, I found that the result could be (regional seats in brackets):

CC 18 (-), PSOE 15 (-), PP 13 (1), Podemos 10 (3), NC 7 (3), Cs 4 (2), ASG 3 (-)


Conclusion: if the seats of the regional constituency are intended to be levelling seats, 9 seats are too little. To put it in other words: this electoral reform is a fraud.

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This is not a question of winning or losing votes.

[Former President tack50]

Yes, it's not about votes but still. Remember that PP didn't formally condemn Francoism in Congress until 2002. It might make them look bad but their base doesn't care.

As for the reform, as a sidenote, if the regional constituency is elected separately it will be the first time that a paralel voting system will be used in Spain. I don't think it will happen but it would be interesting to see the diferences between the island and regional vote (particularly in La Gomera). It will also make counting slower.

Also, the Vox rise is real. 3 of the last 5 polls have included them.

IMOP/El Confidencial

PSOE: 26.5%
Cs: 23.9%
PP: 20.3%
UP: 15.4%
Vox: 3.0%
PACMA: 2.1%

ERC: 2.8%
PDECat: 1.5%
PNV: 1.2%
Bildu: 0.7%

Finally, in Sánchez's thesis scandal, he has released it and the like, and now he is threatening to bring charges against the newspapers that accused him of plagiarism. The 3 newspapers that did (ABC, El Mundo and OKDiario) aren't going to retract themselves so I guess it will end up in court.

[Velasco]

It's not only the PP. Cs supported a legislative proposal on the subject put forward by PSOE past year. It's very difficult to justify that Spanish "liberals" don't support now the exhumation of Franco's remains from that awful place called Valle de los Caídos, something that is long overdue. 43 years is a very long time, but it's better late than never.

As for the thesis of Pedro Sánchez, there is no such scandal. It's simply slander, as Borrell said. Rivera, Casado and the conservative papers muddy the waters, They prefer making noise to make valid criticism on matters that deserve it (for instance, the management of that contract deal in laser guided bombs with Saudi Arabia). That's the way of acting usual in the Spanish Right. Casado lacks the moral authority (the master affair), but it doesn't matter because many right-wingers in Spain are shameless.

[Former President tack50]

Yup, I'd say Sánchez's doctorate is clean. Or at the absolute worst, the accusations against him, even if they were true, can't really be proven easily. For example, the accusation that it was a shadow writer (Carlos Ocaña) who really did the thesis, has been rejected both by Sánchez and by Ocaña himself, so unless they have proof that they are lying there's nothing there.

And of course Casado is not the right person to accuse Sánchez of that. I wonder what will happen if the Supreme Court ends up indicting Casado under charges of bribery and prevarication.

As for Cs and Franco, they are clearly trying to get votes from PP, they seem to have abandoned any pretense of being centre-left or even centrist; and are clearly right of center by now.

[PSOL]

Major news, Spain has rejected an extradition request on the behalf of the Swiss gov for an HSBC whistleblower
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-tax-spain/spain-rejects-latest-swiss-bid-to-extradite-hsbc-whistleblower-idUSKCN1LY1EG
How are banks viewed in Spain, are chains viewed similarly or more intense than in the states.