Spanish elections and politics

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

how are all the corruption cases going? I remember before Catalonia eupted as an issue, it very much looked like Rajoy himself would get caught up?

Well Rajoy still lead the PP by next election?

[Former President tack50]

how are all the corruption cases going? I remember before Catalonia eupted as an issue, it very much looked like Rajoy himself would get caught up?

Well Rajoy still lead the PP by next election?

Well, the trickle of corrupt PP politicians has continued for the last few months or so. The hottest case right now seems to be a continuation of the Gürtel case, involving the Valencian PP, but there have been others.

And yes, Rajoy will still lead PP by the next election. He says that he wants to continue and an internal revolt seems impossible (if it wasn't done in 2008, it won't happen now).

I guess Cs could try to pass term limits but I don't think that will go anywhere.

[Velasco]

There was a massive feminist strike on March 8

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/08/spanish-women-give-up-work-for-a-day-in-first-feminist-strike

This has been the most relevant political issue this week. What is more: that day will pass to history. I feel deeply grateful and, for once, proud of my country. Feminism is a good cause that trascends sex, gender, ethnicity or personal beliefs.

Feminist tide is a breath of fresh air after the insufferable war on flags (Catalan separatism, Spanish nationalism).

The success of the feminist strike caught Spanish Right unaware. PP and Cs have tried to join the feminist wave after the big Women's Day demonstrations, when both parties were previously hostile or wary to the call.

The feminist tide in Spain is cross-ideological and cross-generational

[Former President tack50]

To be fair, the actual strike was very underwhelming. Just compare the electricity consumption data to that of the last general strike (14th November 2012). Though it also doesn't help that only small unions were supporting the 24h strikes, with the major unions (CCOO and UGT) only backing 2h strikes

https://demanda.ree.es/demanda.html

What was a success were the protests in the same day, which was a surprise to me. I though they were going to fail hard.

I'm happy we've moved on from flags I guess but I don't quite agree with the feminists.

Though watching PP and Cs hilariously backflip hard was really nice.

PP went from people like Cifuentes and Tejerina saying they will do a "Japanese strike" (ie work harder), to Rajoy inmediately saying that he doesn't believe that. And Cs went from being against the strike because it was anticapitalist to fully supporting it (though in Cs' defense, one of the issues was that capitalism opressed women and their flip wasn't as hard as PP's)

[Zinneke]

What is C's position on the rather draconian censorship laws the PP has been introducing? It should be a litmus test of their "liberal" credentials.

[Former President tack50]

Well, iirc they were in favour of repealing the "gag law" at least nominally. However they hadn't really done anything about it until this February when they voted to pass a motion to start repealing it. Still not repealed though.

However as of now the big "liberal" debate is probably the repeal of "permanent revisable prision", a form of life imprisionment introduced in 2015 by PP.

This has come into the spotlight because of a few mediatic murder cases reciently. The positions are:

PP: They want to keep it as is, or even make it harsher

Cs: They've done a flip. Back when they made a deal with PSOE they agreed to repeal it as part of the deal (though it wasn't part of their platform in Cs defense). However now they have flipped to PP's position, where they want to keep it or even make it harsher. They do seem slightly more moderate than PP though

PSOE, Podemos and PNV are the main parties behind the effort to repeal the law, they all agree on repealing it.

Worth noting that back when it was passed all parties except PP sent the law to the constitutional court to see if it was constitutional. No news on that front though.

So I guess Cs is becoming less liberal and more of a PP-lite without corruption

[Velasco]

To be fair, the actual strike was very underwhelming. Just compare the electricity consumption data to that of the last general strike (14th November 2012). Though it also doesn't help that only small unions were supporting the 24h strikes, with the major unions (CCOO and UGT) only backing 2h strikes

https://demanda.ree.es/demanda.html

What was a success were the protests in the same day, which was a surprise to me. I though they were going to fail hard.

I'm happy we've moved on from flags I guess but I don't quite agree with the feminists.

Though watching PP and Cs hilariously backflip hard was really nice.

PP went from people like Cifuentes and Tejerina saying they will do a "Japanese strike" (ie work harder), to Rajoy inmediately saying that he doesn't believe that. And Cs went from being against the strike because it was anticapitalist to fully supporting it (though in Cs' defense, one of the issues was that capitalism opressed women and their flip wasn't as hard as PP's)

The bolded sentence is the proof that feminists achieved a great success.

As for electric consumption data, keep in mind that it was a "women's strike" (in most cases men went to work) and that in many cases there were selective and not total strikes. It was a glorious journey, in my opinion. Feminists have achieved the"transversality" that Podemos and Ciudadanos have been always pursuing. Furthermore, they have achieved "hegemony" (Íñigo Errejón must be happy) I don't know if these protests will have electoral repercussion, but everybody will have to note down. In that regard Albert Rivera reacted awkwardly (not to mention Rajoy, Tejerina and Cifuentes). Macron would have reacted with more agility. There is an undeniable prejudice against feminism in the Spanish Right.

I think feminist demands are fair and reasonable. Given that you don't give arguments against, I don't know where are your disagreements. 

[Former President tack50]

I mean, I just think they might be going too far? Not sure how to put it really. Many demands are reasonable, but some of my complaints might include:

The "wage gap" doesn't really exist. If you adjust for hours worked, position, etc; the wage gap basically disappears, it's just that women usually take less paid jobs, work less hours etc. Of course now you have to ask whether that's because of social pressure or what, but the "wage gap" in the "women earn less for the same job" sense  doesn't really exist.

In fact I think it will probably shrink naturally over the years as the generations educated under Franco (when women didn't really work and were discriminated if they did) retire and since women have a majority of degrees in university.

Other stuff I don't fully agree might include

Way too much focus on "oppression by the patriarchy". Though it might be me being subconsciously biased against those terms.

While not the focus of the strike, it involved anti-capitalist elements.

It was way too politicised. Looking at the manifesto, many parts might as well be part of Podemos' or PSOE's 2020 manifesto. Think of stuff like critizising cuts and corruption.

That and the fact that the stike was redundant in itself IMO. The 2h strikes by the major unions were much better. I do fully support the protests though.

Now, it doesn't mean that I disagree with all or even most of the manifesto (I'd probably agree 50-75%), I just think it went a bit too far?

I feel like while there's still stuff to do, women in Spain are really well off. Iirc Spain was the 5th best country to be a woman, only behind like the nordic countries. We are on the right track, inequality will probably solve itself over time. We just have to wait now, Rome wasn't built in a day after all.

[Former President tack50]

On a sidenote, the pensionists protests have been also very successful. They are also bringing pensions back to the debate.

For those unaware, the government has been rising pensions by 0.25% each year even though inflation is much higher than that. So in the end it equals to some sort of "hidden cut"

The thing is that the entire Spanish pension system is probably a Ponzi scheme in that young people (less) pay the pensions of old people (more). So the big problem here (as everywhere else) is sustainability.

Iirc Podemos and PSOE are pushing to tie pensions to inflation while the government is opposed to that.

[Velasco]

I mean, I just think they might be going too far? Not sure how to put it really. Many demands are reasonable, but some of my complaints might include:

The "wage gap" doesn't really exist. If you adjust for hours worked, position, etc; the wage gap basically disappears, it's just that women usually take less paid jobs, work less hours etc. Of course now you have to ask whether that's because of social pressure or what, but the "wage gap" in the "women earn less for the same job" sense  doesn't really exist.

In fact I think it will probably shrink naturally over the years as the generations educated under Franco (when women didn't really work and were discriminated if they did) retire and since women have a majority of degrees in university.

According to INE the average gross re numeration of men was EUR 25.992.76 in 2015, while women earned EUR 20.051.58 on average. This means that year women earned 23% less than men on average. It's the so-called "yearly wage gap" unadjusted.

Given that the proportion of women with part-time jobs is much higher than men's (25% and 8%, respectively), Eurostat measures gross re numeration per hour worked. According to that, wage gap in Spain is 14.2%. The higher proportion of part-time jobs is related with the role of women as mothers, housewives and caregivers.

It is illegal to pay different salaries for doing the same job, but the principle of "equal pay for work of equal value" is not always met. Direct discrimination is rare. but indirect discrimination is more common.  For examples and further detail on what is the "wage gap", read the article linked below.

https://elpais.com/economia/2018/03/07/actualidad/1520446618_332181.html

 My opinion is that the concept of "wage gap" is more real than the "Japanese strike" (it's an urban legend circulating in Spain). Even Cristina Cifuentes admits its existence!

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The historical existence of patriarchy is undeniable. We live in a patriarchal society, Despite men and women are equal before the law, there is discrimination in many aspects of life. Patriarchy is deeply entrenched in our culture and our society and it will take generations achieving real gender equality. The ugliest face of what some feminists call "oppression by the patriarchy" is gender violence. Also women trafficking, or the fact that a woman cannot walk alone at night without fear (something that average men don't experience).You may not like feminist terminology, but it's based on reality. 

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Obviously. The struggle for gender equality is political. Look from another angle: maybe Podemos and PSOE are more open to feminism than PP and Cs. Out of interest, PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez tried to hit the headlines on March 8 demonstrations and was booed by feminists.

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It's a poor excuse, in my opinion. It's not necessary to embrace anti-capitalism in order to support the protests. Even if you don't agree with the wording of the manifesto, the cause of gender equality transcends that ideology.

I like Inés Arrimadas and think that she's much better than her boss, the terrible Albert Rivera, but she made a mistake in not supporting the protests because of the anti-capitalist thing. On the other hand, Cs is far from being a feminist party. Remember the 2015 campaign.

[Velasco]

On a sidenote, the pensionists protests have been also very successful. They are also bringing pensions back to the debate.

The pensioner protests are more than a footnote. Also, they touch the aging PP voter base. On the other hand, PP has emptied the social security money box. The future of pension system is at stake. Given the current demographic trend, the problem is very worrying.

Corruption, Catalonia, anti-capitalist women, angry pensioners... Everything runs smoothly. Mariano!

[Former President tack50]

We have some new polls. And for the first time ever, Vox manages to get a seat in a regional assembly!

Celeste-Tel for eldiario.es



Simple Lógica





Approval ratings





And the poll you were all waiting for:

SyM Consulting for Murcia regional assembly



Yes, the "others" part is confirmed to be Vox

https://twitter.com/electo_mania/status/974371882031075328

That pollster has done quite a lot of regional polls actually over the last few months, but this one is by far the most interesting one, mostly because of the IU revival and Vox's rise

[Former President tack50]

2 more new polls

GAD3 for La Vanguardia



Not much interesting about this one other than Podemos finally recovering and Cs winning in votes but only getting a tie in terms of seats

Invymark for La Sexta



This one predicts a tie in terms of votes. However IMO the most interesting thing are the Catalan nationalists, with PDECat tying with ERC! It might be a fluke (after all there's probably a small sample size) but if they managed to beat ERC, it would be the first time ERC is the smaller Catalan nationalist in a Spain-wide election since the 2011 general election.

[Former President tack50]

We somehow got a lot of big news today!

First of all we have a big scandal from regional president of Madrid, Cristina Cifuentes (PP). She is being accused of falsifying her final Masters degree work and another course. The university and Cifuentes have denied this and released some documents but the ones who uncovered the scandal are releasing contradicting documents so who knows? Thus far she has not given a good explanation.

And this is a very big scandal for several reasons:

The regional election is in June of 2019, little more than a year from now. And PP will start choosing its candidates soon. So if she is found guilty of falsifying her degree she will have to be replaced. So far she is giving big vibes of corruption, another corruption case she also didn't really explain it well.

Her deal with Cs explicitly said that if someone from the government was found falsyfying their curriculum, they had to resign. Thus far Cs hasn't broken the alliance but if she isn't able to explain it well, they'll probably do that soon.




And the other big news, guess who? Everyone's favourite region, Catalonia!

The judge in charge of the case against the former regional government called a meeting for this friday, to see if he sent them back to prision, put them a bigger bail, did nothing, retired their passports, the usual stuff

To counteract this and just to be sure that they don't go to jail, the president of the catalan parliament, Roger Torrent, called for a special meeting of the Catalan parliament tomorrow, to make Jordi Turull (fmr. government speaker) the new regional Catalan president.

It's expected to pass since everyone thinks CUP won't dare to oppose him. So tomorrow we'll have a new Catalan president, out of nowhere.

However apparently because of procedural stuff there's a short while between getting a president-elect and the president-elect taking possession. So it's entirely possible that Turull is sent to jail as president-elect, which means that he is inmediately disqualified and thus article 155 isn't lifted.

Catalan politicians never cease to amaze me

[Former President tack50]

Well, there have been more developments.

On the Cifuentes scandal thing not much unfortunately other than Cifuentes falling into lots of contradictions. I hope she doesn't get away with it but instead her contradictions force her to resign like Soria.

However the big development is in Catalonia.

Yesterday was the vote on Jordi Turull's candidacy for regional president. And in a surprising turn of events, CUP decided to abstain instead of voting in favour! This means that the vote failed, 64 yes, 65 no, 4 abstentions, 2 absent (Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Comín, both in Brussels).

Today the meeting with the judge happened, intended for the judge to revise 6 cases. However one of the ones who were supposed to be there, Marta Rovira (who was the head of ERC during the campaign since Junqueras was in jail), decided to self-exile herself in Switzerland!

So the remaining 5 were sent to prision, including Jordi Turull himself, under a very easy "risk of fleeing" charge. The other 4 were:

Former president of the Catalan parliament Carme Forcadell
Former regional minister "of foreign affairs" Raul Romeva
Former regional minister of territory Josep Rull
Former regional minister of labour Dolors Bassa

It seems that tomorrow's second round (which would have failed anyways) will have to be cancelled since Jordi Turull will be in jail. However this still counts as the start of the countdown to a new election. So if they don't get someone elected before the 22nd of May, there will be a new election called for the 15th of July. Yay! ^/s

And of course this means that Rajoy won't be able to pass a budget since PNV has said that they won't even negotiate until article 155 is lifted, which won't happen until there's a "regional government according to law".

[Velasco]

Yesterday was the vote on Jordi Turull's candidacy for regional president. And in a surprising turn of events, CUP decided to abstain instead of voting in favour! This means that the vote failed, 64 yes, 65 no, 4 abstentions, 2 absent (Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Comín, both in Brussels).

The CUP abstention on the Jordi Turull's investiture wasn't surprising at all. As it happened when JxCAT proposed the investiture of former ANC leader (now in jail) Jordi Sánchez, the CUP people said they won't support any candidate who does not follow the insurrectionary path to independence (disobey the Spanish state, implementation of the self-proclaimed "Republic of Catalonia"). The other reason to abstain is that Turull represents the old Convergència (linked to Jordi Pujol and corruption), that is to say he's not a candidate palatable for the CUP. Like them or not (I don't like them), they are always consistent with their statements. After the bad election results, the far-left separatist party is facing some internal turbulence.

[Mike88]

Puigdemont detained after crossing the border between Denmark and Germany.

[Former President tack50]

Rajoy has finally presented his 2018 bugdet. Quite late but whatever.

He has also done a deal with Cs so that they support the budget.

However it is not expected to pass in its current form since PNV has said they won't even sit to negotiate anything until article 155 is lifted. As for the Canarians, CC has said that if everything goes well they will probably support it, while NC refuses to negotiate until PP has the support of PNV (they want to be the magic 176th MP)

Another possibility could be for PSOE to abstain, but I don't think that could be sold by Sánchez. It won't make the old guard love him and it would be a big betrayal of his base, who voted him on his "no is no" pledges.

Important measures included in the budget negotiation between PP and Cs are

Raising minimum and widow pensions by 2%
30-60€ tax cut for pensioners earning between 1000 and 1200 €
Negative fiscal credit for pensions between 600 and 1000€
Paternity leave to be made 1 week longer
1000€ help for parents with kids 0-3 years old
Salary compliment for 600 000 young people, to be paid with EU funds
500 million € for policemen and Guardia Civil to earn the same as their regional counterparts (mossos, ertzainza)

[Former President tack50]

We haven't had polls for a while, here's a new one:

Sigma Dos for El Mundo



I guess we'll soon talk again about the "sorpasso"? XD

[Former President tack50]

Yet another new poll, this time from

Sociométrica for El Español



2 consecutive polls with PSOE at less than 20%. Bad news for Pedro Sánchez.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

What's with the mini Vox bump?

[Former President tack50]

What's with the mini Vox bump?

It's actually a drop believe it or not! They were at 2% in November, 1.7% in January and now at 1.5%

I wouldn't trust the percentage much though, at least for small parties, just the seat count. 0.5% for CC for example is also somewhat suspicious IMO

Thing is, Sociometrica are the only ones asking for Vox (barely any pollsters ask for parties smaller than PNV or PDECat to begin with). So it's the only reference we will have until the EU parliment election I'd say.

[Former President tack50]

It's a bit old, but there has been a corruption scandal affecting PSOE and Compromís in the Valencian community. Not to the scale of PP's Gurtel probably, but still will probably harm them quite a bit, PP and Cs will almos surely attack them on that.

We are starting to get some polls about the regional elections of 2019. Anyways, here's the Madrid poll

Sociométrica for El Español, Madrid regional election

5% threshold, 1 at large constituency



With this result Cs would be the strongest party and could choose their coaltion partner between PP and PSOE. IU (if they run alone) would barely get over the threshold and make a comeback. Vox gets 3.4% which is under the threshold, but in a general election would give them 1 seat (then again this pollster is an outlier). Everyone down except Cs and IU

The Cifuentes scandal probably helped them a lot.

[Former President tack50]

And speaking about Madrid, regional president Cristina Cifuentes went today to the regional assembly to explain herself and her master's degree scandal. Her explanation was far from good.

And inmediately after the parliament session was over, PSOE inmediately said that they'll present a no confidence vote. Podemos has already said that they'll support it no matter what.

So now it's all about Cs, whether they side with PP and Cifuentes or with PSOE and kick her out, 1 year before the regional elections. Or maybe Cifuentes resigns anyways, remember that we already saw a very similar scenario unfold in Murcia last year.

Also, it would be quite ironic if Cifuentes is taken down by falsifying her master's degree, and her replacement being former eduaction minister and university professor Angel Gabilondo (PSOE's leader in Madrid) XD

[TheSaint250]

Tack, have there been any regional polls from Valencia recently?