Talk Elections

I'm making some Spanish regional election maps and I thought it could be funny a thread on the subject. By the moment I've finished maps for Asturias (2011 and 2012), Canaries (2007 and 2011, also local elections) and Galicia (2005). I'm working in Galicia 2009 right now and I suppose that I'll finish others this summer, I'm interested particularly in Catalan elections. I'll make telegraphic summaries about voting systems, parties, candidates or the geographic distribution of the vote. Don't expect great things because I have a limited capacity, but ask what you want.

Asturias: 2011 and 2012.

The General Council of the Principality of Asturias has 45 members elected in closed list proportional representation allocated by D'Hont method. There is a 3% threshold for eligible lists. Asturias is divided in three electoral electoral districts: Central (34 seats), Western (6) and Eastern (5). The Central district has the bulk of the Asturian population and economic activity. Comprises the capital (Oviedo) the most populated city (Gijón), the industrial city of Avilés and the mining basins of Caudal (Mieres) and Nalón (Langreo). Eastern and Western districts are more rural and are slightly over represented.

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The map above shows the population (thousands) in every council. The most populated area is the triangle between Oviedo, Gijón and Avilés. The coal mining basins have lost population because of the decline of the economic activity. Also, the rural areas have experienced a drop.

Traditionally Oviedo is a conservative place (overwhelming PP majorities in local elections), Gijón and Avilés are more progressive and the mining basins are obvious leftist strongholds, with PSOE and IU usually in 1st or 2nd places.

2011 election:

The Asturian branch of the Spanish Workers' Socialist Party (PSOE) has been in office since the first election in 1983, with the sole exception of the 1995-1999 legislature. PSOE had to face two major challenges: 1) the catastrophic economic situation in Spain and the unpopularity of Zapatero and PSOE and 2) the surge of a new party around the charismatic and well known nationwide figure of Francisco Álvarez Cascos, former Deputy Prime Minister of Spain and former general secretary of PP (People's Party). Internal quarrels between Álvarez Cascos and the regional and national PP directions ended with the 'general secretario' exit and the subsequent split of Asturian PP between Cascos and Gabino Lorenzo (former mayor of Oviedo). The new party was called FAC (it means Civic Asturian Forum, but also are the initials of Francisco Álvarez Cascos) and was a terrible headache for Asturian PP and the only cloud in the diaphanous PP sky in May 2011. Asturian PP placed Isabel Pérez Espinosa, former Oviedo councilor and a puppet of Gabino Lorenzo. PSOE candidate was Javier Fernández a mining engineer who replaced Vicente Álvarez Areces, the incumbent regional president.The IU (United Left) candidate was Jesús Iglesias (Llamazares 'Open Left' sector).

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The outcome of the election was a terrible defeat for PSOE: 29.8% (-12.2%) and 15 seats (-6). FAC was the great winner, beyond expectations: 29.8% and 16 seats. PP dropped to the third place: 19.9% (-21.6%) and 10 seats (-10). IU improved slightly: 10.3% (+0.6%) and 4 seats (+1). UPyD fell short: 2.5% and 0 seats.

Surprisingly FAC was the party with the most votes in the main cities of Asturias, even in PP's Gabino de Lorenzo bastion of Oviedo. PSOE performances at Oviedo, Gijón or Avilés were terrible and its figures were also low in the mining basins. PP only managed to win in a few scattered unimportant councils.

2012 Election:

FAC was the party with the plurality of seats on May election, although PSOE got the plurality of votes by a narrow margin. The Genaral Council had a right-wing majority in a traditionally left leaning region; FAC and PP won 26 of 45 seats and 49.7% of the vote. But a coalition government was impossible due the bad blood between Álvarez Cascos and the regional and national PP. Javier Fernández, the understated PSOE candidate gave up to present his candidacy.  FAC formed minority government for six months but he was unable to pass the budget and had to call a new election which was held on March 2012. Álvarez Cascos proved to be a bad bargainer and during his short term he was recriminated for being a sectarian and lacking of any sense of touch. Also, he had to face public recrimination for calling new elections in a crisis context. PSOE repeated candidacy with Javier Fernández, and PP appointed this time Mercédez Fernández, former friend of the former general secretary, IU placed again Jesús Iglesias.

FAC hopes were strenghthen its majority in a personal challenge of Álvarez Cascos against his critics. PSOE hoped to obtain a clear victory that allowed them to form a left-wing coalition or a minority government with IU external support. PP wished to overperform Cascos and at least get the second place. Finally, UPYD (Union, Progress and Democracy, the party of the former PSOE politician, Rosa Díez) hoped to get parliamentary representation and to be decisive in the subsequent negotiations.  

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The election result was: PSOE: 32% (+2.2%) and 17 seats (+2); FAC 24% (-5%) and 12 seats (-4); PP 21.5% (+1.6%) and 10 seats (=); IU 13.8% (+3.5%) and 5 seats (+1) and UPyD 3.8% (+1.3%) and 1 seat.

This time the right block (PP-FAC) and the left block (PSOE-IU) gained 22 seats each one and the 'centrist' UPyD had the key to break the tie. The result was a slight recovery for PSOE; a good but not spectacular one for IU; a drop for FAC (although the former general secretary mantained the leadership in the Asturian right-wing), and a little but useless improvement for PP which was a defeat because it was still the 3rd force. Finally, UPyD achieved a success seating its first parliamentary in Asturias.

Geographically PSOE improved its performance in the main cities, IU ended second behind PSOE in the mining basins, PP managed to be the party with the most votes in Oviedo (it was a three party contest between PP, FAC and PSOE) and FAC dropped in the populated areas, although improved in some councils in the Western district. This improvement was not enough to gain its second seat in Western Asturias which finally went to PSOE after the count of the Asturian vote abroad.

After 51 days of negotiations and the uncertainty of the UPyD position, Javier Fernández was elected President of the Principality of Asturias and formed a minority government with the external support of IU and UPyD.

Fabulous maps. I've written a sh**tload about Spain but I've made relatively few maps, but I have a few maps of various Basque elections lying around somewhere.

Thanks, Hash, I've seen some of your maps and Julio told me about your fascination with Basque Country. Also, I've read about the 90% of your stuff about Spain at World Elections and some threads here. Needless to say that all is brilliant.

Probably we'll have elections in Galicia next autumn if rumours are true.

Galicia 2005: Fraga loses absolute majority and PSOE and BNG  form a coalition government at la Xunta

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Galicia 2009: PP comes back to power with Alberto Núñez Feijoó. Notice that the red area around La Coruña turned into blue. The yellow area in Ourense province is Allariz and environs. Anxo Quintana, the BNG candidate in 2005 and 2009 was mayor of that town.

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I've always wondered what was up with those left-wing towns in Lugo Province right on the regional border. Are these mining/industrial areas like in next-door Asturias and Leon?

Oh this thread is good.

 

No, they're basically small councils in Os Ancares and A Fonsagrada comarques, a montainous, isolated and poor rural region. The neighbouring rural areas in Asturias also show a strong support towards PSOE. I'm not too much versed in local politics in this concrete area. José (or Pepinho) Blanco, the former minister in Zapatero's cabinet is from Lugo province. The regions around A Coruña and Ferrol in the north and Vigo in the south have more industrial activities. Galicia is not too much industrialised and there is no coal mining except a coalpit (anthracite) and a highly polluting power plant at As Pontes (A Coruña); PSOE won there and BNG polled strongly. Ferrol has shipyards and Vigo has automobile factories. Also textiles have some importance. The Zara's headquarters is at Arteixo, a council (concello) next to A Coruña.

Great maps!

I usually go to Llanes (Asturias) on holidays, it's good to see it voted for Javi in 2011 and 2012, even if I've always known they vote PSOE. 2011 was a really bad year, and we still managed to keep Llanes.
Galicia is another story... My mother's family lived in Mondariz. They were republicans, so they moved to Belo Horizonte after the war (some of them were already living in Manaus and others in Uruguay). It seems that they were the unique socialist family living in villages and "aldeas" pontevedrenses :(. And their sons and daughters now vote DEM/PSDB in Brazil...
I guess Feijoo will beat PSdeG and BNG again this time.

Welcome back. Other beautiful rural places like Cangas de Onís (Cabrales!), Somiedo or Los Oscos area in the West voted strongly for PSOE. The real drop for the socialists was in the most populated Central Asturias, the results in Gijón or in places like Mieres on May 2011 were really bad.

The Mondariz area is really conservative, although the best PP's records are at Avión and Beariz (Ourense, next to Pontevedra border). A lot of people registered in these councils really don't live there. PP usually polls above 80%. It's in the coast or in the provincial capitals where PSOE and BNG together were stronger than PP (at least in 2005). There was a positive trend for PSOE that reached its peak at 2008 General Elections.



Many people say that is unlikely that Feijoó will retain the majority (the crisis, of course). He's the sure winner and in his favour run the present-day PSOE weakness and the split of the Galician nationalism in two. For the next election there will be two nationalist lists: the 'classical' BNG (Galician Nationalist Bloc) with the dominant communist or left-wing UPG (Union do Povo Galego; Galician People's Union) and the dissident internal factions that left BNG and are going to build a new formation around Xosé Manuel Beiras. The latter was BNG candidate in the 1997 and 2001 elections which recorded the best results for the Galician nationalism (25% and 23% respectively and with PSOE as 3rd force). Add to this the recent improvements of Galician IU, that received many votes of disillusioned former BNG voters and you'll have four forces fighting in the left.

Next episode: The Canaries. I'm afraid that I'll have to say something about the f***ing electoral system in my little corner of the world (oh, Jesus!). I'm trying to make a little historical serie of Catalan elections (1999-2010). Do you have another suggestions, Julio, or are you going to make some maps of Madrid or something else? 8)

And we have a new ELPAIS poll:

PP 30% (-7%)
PSOE 24.7 (+1.6)
IU 12.3 (-0.9)
UPyD 9.9 (+2.1)

It's pretty obvious that PP's declining because even its voters don't like the "recortes" and the big possibility of being bailouted. And some of them are going to UPyD.

The ELMUNDO poll from last week:

PP 35.8%
PSOE 29.6
IU 11.7
UPyD 7.8

But things have changed since then.

What do you think? Is there a possibility of a left-majority (PSOE-IU-BNG-ERC-Compromis-Equo-Bildu-NaBai-PRC) Parliament in the case we have new elections? (it won't happen, I know)

With those numbers, IU could have a possibility in Coruña (!), Valladolid (!), Murcia and Cadiz, I believe. And UPyD could be nearing 20% in Avila (!!).

I don't trust Spanish opinion polls very much but there's an obvious and logical trend against PP. With the Sigma Dos (El Mundo) figures, maybe PP could count with the conditional confidence and supply of CiU.

The cutbacks will affect the Galician Parliament. Núñez Feijoó wants to cut the number of seats from 75 to 61 in a clear move to secure a parliamentary majority.

There are four electoral districts in Galicia. Every province has a minimum of 10 seats and the 35 remaining seats are allocated by population. Nowadays A Coruña elects 24 seats, Pontevedra 22, Lugo 15 and Ourense 14. With the proposed reform A Coruña falls to 19 (-5), Pontevedra falls to 17 (-5), Lugo to 13 (-2) and Ourense to 12 (-2). The threshold is 5% for elegible lists in every province. PSOE and BNG are opposed, obviously.

According to El Mundo a likely election date would be October 28 (my f***ing birthday date, btw).

Canary Islands, demographics, malapportionment:

Population (thousands) by municipalities:

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The Canarian Parliament has 60 seats in seven insular electoral districts. The allocation of seats follows the principle of the "triple parity": 30 seats for both Canarian provinces (Las Palmas and SC de Tenerife), 30 seats the central or major islands and 30 the peripherical or minor islands and equal number of seats (15) for Gran Canaria and Tenerife. This apportionment was motivated for the perennial rivalry between the major islands (pleito insular, roughly insular quarrel or disputation) and the reivindications of the traditionally disadvantaged minor islands.

Allocation of seats (registered voters, 2011/quota):

Tenerife 15 (674608/44974); Gran Canaria 15 (651327/43421); Lanzarote 8 (84469/10559); La Palma 8 (80130/10016); Fuerteventura 7 (56309/8044); La Gomera 4 (11691/2923); El Hierro 3 (10250/3417).

Since 1996 the 'electoral barriers' or thresholds for elegible lists were increased from 3 to 6% of the regional votes and from 15 to 30% of insular votes.

The malapportionment and the high electoral barriers make almost impossible gaining seats for minoritarian forces. The consequence is that the Canarian Parliament had only three major forces in most of the legislatures: CC (Canarian Coalition), PSOE (Socialists) and PP (People's Party). Since its foundation (February 1993) CC has been in office, mainly in coalition governments with PP and lately with PSOE.

You have a new map, I have a new poll (CELESTE-TEL). If you don't mind, I'll post them here, as this is the only active thread about Spain elections:

PP.................... 34,2% (152/154 escaños)
PSOE ..............29,5% (118/121 escaños)
IU ....................10.7% (19/20 escaños)
UPyD............... 8.7% (12/13 escaños)
CIU ................. 4.3% (15 escaños)
EHB................. 1.5% (07 escaños)
PNV..................1.7% (06 escaños)
ERC..................1,5% (04/05 escaños)
BNG .................1,1% (02/03 escaños)
CC/NC .............0.6% (02/03 escaños)
COMPROMÍS...1.9% (03/04 escaños)
FAC..................0.6% (01 escaño)
GBAI ............... 0.2% (01 escaño)

I didn't know this pollster until today, but they were decently accurate last year.

I don't mind. Celeste Tel is a small pollster from Valencia. I prefer them rather than the polls of some media from Madrid. PP seems to be at very low figures and UPyD ones are surprisingly high.

2007 election:

The Canarian Coalition candidate was Paulino Rivero, replacing the incumbent Adán Martín. Rivero is from Tenerife, like Martín (both members of the powerful Tenerife Independent Group, ATI). Since there was an implicit pact between the groups that formed CC about the rotation of candidates between Tenerife and Gran Canaria there was a split in the governing force. The former president, Román Rodríguez (1995-1999), and members of the former left-wing Canarian Initiative (ICAN) created a rival nationalist force: New Canaries (NC). On the other hand members of the former Canarian Independent Center (CCI) created another candidature called Canarian Nationalist Centre (CCN).

PSOE placed Juan Fernando López Aguilar, former Minister of Justice. He was the personal bid of Zapatero in the traditionally hostile ground of the Canaries and the favourite to win the election.

The PP candidate was José Manuel Soria, President of the Island Council (Cabildo) of Gran Canaria and former mayor of Las Palmas. PP was in the government coalition in the first half of the 2003-2007 Legislature. In the second half there was a CC minority government.

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PSOE won the election with 34.5% of the vote and 26 seats. CC got 24.1% of the vote and 19 seats, including the independents of El Hierro (AHI). PP got 24% of the vote and only 15 seats, because the PP vote was highly concentrated in Gran Canaria.

Out of the Parliament: NC with 5.4% of the vote (the center-left nationalists failed to reach the 6% regional threshold, because of their weakness outside Gran Canaria), the CCN with 4%, the Canarian Greens (LVC) with 1.9% and the Independents of Lanzarote (PIL) which failed to reach the 30% threshold in Lanzarote.

Two examples of the weird effects of the electoral law.

Gran Canaria: PSOE 37.9% (7 seats); PP 34.2% (7); NC 11.8% (no seats); CC 5.4% (1)

Lanzarote: PSOE 28.7% (4 seats); PIL 21.9% (no seats); CC 18.7% (2); PP 15.2% (2)

Paulino Rivero was elected President of the Canary Islands and formed a coalition government with PP. José Manuel Soria was appointed Vice-President.

Aren't those the ones with language issues?

Are you asking for Asturias and León or Lugo?

Galician language has official status but the Asturian language has not, although it has some legal protection and it's an optional choice at school.

About the Astur-Leonese languages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astur-Leonese_linguistic_group

Let's finish with the Canaries.

2011 election:

CC-PP coalition government broke several months prior to the election.

The incumbent Paulino Rivero sought for re-election. CC concluded agreements with the CCN and the tiny PNC (Canarian Nationalist Party).

Juan Fernando López Aguilar left the Canaries after being elected MEP in the last European Election. Some people in the Canarian Socialists, lead by Jerónimo Saavedra, then mayor of Las Palmas, felt that PSOE was too long in the opposition and looked for a better relationship with the ruling CC. José Miguel Pérez, then President of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria (PSOE-NC coalition), was elected new general secretary and later appointed candidate for the 2011 election. Some dissatisfied militants of Tenerife broke with the regional PSOE and created a new group called Socialists for Tenerife (SxT).

José Manuel Soria was once again the PP candidate. Populares expected that the blue wave would reach the Canaries, despite the bad records of the CC-PP government, where Soria was  regional councillor of Economy plus Vice-President.

New Canaries looked for gaining seats in the new parliament and concluded agreements with Socialists for Tenerife, the Independents of Lanzarote and other small groups in Fuerteventura, La Gomera and La Palma.
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Election result: PP 31.9% and 21 seats; CC-CCN (including AHI) 24.9% and 21 seats; PSOE 21% and 15 seats; NC 9.1% and 3 seats.

The blue wave reached Gran Canaria and PP had good records at Tenerife, Lanzarote or La Palma. CC experienced a drop in its strongholds in the Western Canaries but improved at Lanzarote and Gran Canaria. PSOE suffered a disaster in all places except La Gomera (they were still the main force) and El Hierro (slight increase). NC gained three seats, two in Gran Canaria and one in Lanzarote. The latter went to Fabián Martín, son of the PIL Alma Mater Dimas Martín, a corrupt insular cacique that rest in jail since 2009. Santiago Pérez, former right hand of JFLA in the Canarian PSOE, got 4.7% of the vote in Tenerife and couldn't win a seat.

After the election an agreement between CC and PSOE ended in a coalition government lead again by Paulino Rivero.

I was thinking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reintegrationism (http://reintegrtionist) norm. I've read somewhere that some municipalities, in which BNG had some strenght, had adopted It, aiming crossborder relations or for some nationalistic reason.

Your link doesn't work but I found the article anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reintegrationism

There's an obvious kinship between Galician and Portuguese languages. In fact many philologists say that they're variants of the same language. I agree with the Castelao statement quoted in the Wiki article. Maybe the Galician language is older than Portuguese keeping in mind that the Reconquista went from north to south. This issue is politically controversial in Galicia in the same manner that anti-catalan people from Valencia sustain that Valencià has nothing to do with Catalan language, which is ridiculous. I remember myself talking with certain people from Galicia claiming that Galician is an isolated language. I'm afraid that most of the non-nationalist people in Galicia are in the same posture. Since I'd prefer to see Linguistics separate from political debates, all these things sound sad for me.

The administrative divisions in Catalonia are a bit complex. There are four provinces: Barcelona. Girona, Lleida and Tarragona which are the electoral districts for regional and General elections. Another division is the comarca which roughly can be compared with an US county or a French canton. I'll use this division for regional election maps because Catalonia has almost 1000 municipalities and roughly the half of them have a population lower than 1000. Finally, there is another proposed division called vegueria. There are seven. Catalan legislators expect that veguerias could replace the provinces as regional electoral districts. I'll make some local election maps of the veguería known as Àmbit Metropolità, which is an extension of the Metropolitan Barcelona. It has 4.8 out of 7.5 millions of people living in Catalonia.

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Credits for the map: a certain Hansen from Barcelona. I limited myself to give colours to the comarcas according with their population.

About comarcas (comarques in Catalan language) and veguerias:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comarques_of_Catalonia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegueria

Elections in Catalonia:

The Parliament of Catalonia has 135 members ellected by universal suffrage in proportional lists, allocated by D'Hont method, in four provincial constituencies. Barcelona elects 85 members, Tarragona 18, Girona 17 and Lleida 15. The three smaller provinces are over representated in comparison with Barcelona. This apportionment had effects in 1999 and 2003 elections, when PSC got the plurality of votes and CiU the plurality of seats.

Jordi Pujol, the CiU candidate, won surprisingly the first Catalonian election after the Civil War and the death of Franco, which was held in 1980. He got 30% of the vote and his PSC (Catalan Socialists) rival, Joan Reventós (the favourite prior the voting day) only a 22%. Since then, the leader of CiU, the Catalan center-right nationalist coalition, obtained comfortable majorities until the 1995 election.

1999 election:

Jordi Pujol, which was in office leading a minority government with external supports of PP and ERC, depending on the issues, faced a major challenge with the Pasqual Maragall candidature. Maragall was the succesful PSC mayor of Barcelona from 1982 to 1997; in 1992 the Olympic Games were in Barcelona and his personal popularity boosted.

The election result was a tie between Pujol and Maragall: PSC and allies got the 37.8%(+13%) and 52 seats(+18); CiU came second in popular vote with 37.7%(-3.2%) but won the plurality of seats: 56 (-4); PP got 9.5% (-3.5%) and 12 seats (-5); ERC 8.7%(-0.8%) and 12 seats (-1) and IC-V won 2.5% of the Catalan vote (-7.2%) and 3 seats in Barcelona (-8).

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PSC went in coalition with IC-V (Catalan Initiative-Greens) in Tarragona, Lleida and Girona and with a platform called Citizens for Change (CpC) which was inspired by Maragall himself. He won in the metropolitan comarques of Barcelonès, Baix Llobregat, Vallès Occidental and Garraf and in Tarragonès and Baix Penedès. Pujol showed a great strenght in the interior comarques of Catalonia.

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The candidate of the Catalan branch of the conservative People's Party was Alberto Fernández Díaz. PP polled better in metropolitan Barcelona and Tarragona. ERC nominated Josep Lluís arod-Rovira, which was elected leader of the Catalan left-wing independentist Republican Left of catalonia after an internal crisis. Like CiU, ERC got better results in the 'deep Catalonia', especially in comarques like Pla de L'Estany (above 20% of the vote).

Finally, Catalonian Initiative (IC) suffered a split because of the deep disagreements between the IC direction and the federal IU about the pervivence of the old PSUC (Socialist Unified Party of Catalonia) and the pact policies. Julio Anguita, then the IU Coordinator, was fiercely opposed to form coalition governments with PSOE at regional and local levels, while IC was supportive of such agreements to form progressive governments. A new IU Catalan branch was formed: Alternative and United Left (EUiA) which stood lists in the four Catalan provinces and got 1.4% of the vote. IC-V only stood alone in Barcelona (3.3% in the province and 3 seats) and in coalition with PSC-CpC in the rest.

Soo, you decided to start those Catalunyan maps :) Qué valiente!! jaja

You'll love the following map, Julio.

The Catalonian election was on October 17. Months before (June 13) Municipal elections were held in Spain. In Catalonia, the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC) got 37.1% of the vote; Convergence and Union (CiU) 26.3%; People's Party (PP) 10.8%; Initiative for Catalonia-Greens (IC-V) 7.8%; Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) 7.7% and finally, Alternative and United Left (EUiA) 2%.

Barcelona Metropolitan Region:

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PSC: The sucessor of Maragall, Joan Clos, won in Barcelona with 45% of the vote and 20 councillors. The Catalan Socialists also won in Lleida and Girona and even in nationalist strongholds like Olot. In metropolitan Barcelona, PSC mantained an overwhelming dominance in the 'red belt' around Barcelona, especially in Hospitalet, Cornellà or Santa Coloma. PSC also won a comfortable majority in Terrassa and won narrowly in Sabadell in a close contest with an ICV-EUiA unitarian list. After this election PSC controlled the majority of the municipal power in Catalonia. PMC is an alternative label of the catalan Socialists that means "Municipal Progress of Catalonia". The Spanish left, and particularly the Catalonian, loves the word "progress".

CiU: The coalition between Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC) won in Tarragona and in the majority of the small towns. In the metropolitan area the most important municipalities where they came first were Sant Cugat and Vilanova i la Geltrú. In Barcelona they got only 21.6% of the vote and 10 councillors.

PP: People's Party didn't win in significant places but came third in the popular vote in Barcelona (14.8%, 6 councillors) and in the whole Catalonia.

ERC:The Catalan independentists got 6.5% and 3 councillors in Barcelona and won in several small and middle towns across Catalonia. Its alternative label for local elections is "AM" (Municipal Agreement)

IC-V:The ecosocialist party, that is the official sucessor of the Euro-Communist PSUC, suffered with the EUiA split. They got 6.3% of the vote and 2 councillors in Barcelona and dropped in several municipalities of the 'red belt' like Badalona, Santa Coloma (former PSUC stronghold) and Cornellà. In Sabadell the incumbent ICV mayor retired and they lost the city to PSC. They managed to keep Prat de Llobregat (where lies the Barcelona airport), Rubí and other towns. The IC-V alternative label is "EPM" (Municipal Progress Union). EUiA won several councillors in towns around Barcelona.

PS: Edited a small patch of ground somewhere.

This is off-topic but the last poll by CIS says:

PP 36.6%; PSOE 29.9%; IU 8.6%; UPyD 6.6%; CiU 4%; ERC 1.7%; PNV 1.5%; Amaiur (now EHB) 1.2%.

I think that I said this before: I don't trust Spanish polls very much. Anyways ERC seems to be recovering in Catalonia.

CIS has always been a bipartisan hack :p. But this poll was taken before the "recortes" that are killing the economy... So, I'd say UPyD is being underestimated and PP (but also PSOE) way overstimated.

And the map is wonderful, I knew I'd see a lot of 'red' there, but I'm glad to see 'green' too :) I have cousins living in Sant Pere de Ribes. They vote PSC or CiU, depending on the situation. I guess they voted PSC that time, they usually vote for the winner.

Municipal elections, May 2003:

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PSC: 34.6% and 229 mayoralties. The Catalan socialists still mantained their predominance in the most populated cities of Catalonia. In Barcelona PSC got 34.2% of the vote and 15 councillors. Joan Clos was re-elected mayor and lead a "tripartite" PSC-ERC-ICV local goverment. In the rest of Catalonia PSC won in Girona, Lleida, Reus, Tortosa and Manresa. In the Metropolitan Region PSC gained the towns of Rubí and Molins de Rei to ICV and Vilanova i La Geltrú to CiU. In Vilafranca del Penedès won a PSC-ICV list.

CiU: 24.8% and 522 mayoralties. The nationalists got 21.8% of the vote and 9 councillors in the city of Barcelona. The most important city in CiU hands was still Tarragona. In the Metropolitan Region they mantained Sant Cugat del Vallès but lost several mayoralties to PSC and ERC.

ERC: 13% and 116 mayoralties. In Barcelona the list lead by Jordi Portabella got 13% of the vote and 5 councillors. The spectacular increase of the Republican Left of catalonia was the prelude of its great success in the 2003 Catalonian election. In the Metropolitan Region they won in several municipalities of the Vallès Oriental and Maresme comarques like Lliçà d'Amunt, Llinars del Vallès or Calella. ERC also won the mayoralties of Valls and Puigcerdà.

PP: 11.3% and 9 mayoralties. People's Party got 16.4% and 7 councillors in Barcelona. In the Metro area they won in Sant Andreu de Llavaneres (Maresme) and the little Pontons (Alt Penedès), just like in 1999.

ICV-EUiA: 10.5% and 20 mayoralties. The candidate in Barcelona was Inma Mayol and the list got 12.3% of the vote and 5 councillors. ICV retained El Prat and Sant Feliu in the Baix Llobregat but, while the trend was favourable in Barcelona and in rural areas, in the 'red belt' PSC was progressively gaining ground. In several municipalities EUiA ran separated lists.

2003 election:

Jordi Pujol left politics and was replaced by Artur Mas. PSC repeated with Maragall. Approximately the same geographical distribution, although with lower vote percentages than in the previous election. PSC got 31.2% and 42 deputies; CiU 30.9% and 46 seats.

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2003 and 2004 were the Carod-Rovira moment. The left-wing independentist ERC achieved its best results in the recent History. With 16.5% of the vote and 23 seats ERC had the key in the new parliament. Finally they decided to form a left-wing "tripartite" with PSC and ICV-EUiA. By that moment ERC hoped to replace CiU as the main nationalist force in Catalonia. PP placed Josep Piqué. former minister for foreign affairs and a soft catalanist, previously related with CiU, in an attempt to moderate the anti-catalanist image of PP in certain sectors of the society. The party improved its previous record: 11.9% and 15 seats. The best PP result was in 1995 with Aleix Vidal-Quadras, more controversial than the moderate Piqué. Finally ICV and EUiA reached a coalition agreement, with Gaspar Llamazares as IU national coordinator. They were still separate parties and EUiA remained as the IU reference in Catalonia. The coalition achieved 7.3% and 9 seats and became the minor partner of the tripartite.

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Euskadi 2005:

The coalition between the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Basque Solidarity (Eusko Alkartasuna, EA) won 29 seats (38.7%). The Socialist Party of Euskadi (PSE-EE) 18 seats (22.7% of the vote). People's Party 15 seats (17.4%). The Communist Party of the Basque Homelands (EHAK-PCTV), that was a puppet of the banned Batasuna, 9 seats (12.4%). United Left (Ezker Batua-Berdeak, EB-B) 3 seats (5.4%). Aralar 1 seat (2.2%).

Juan José Ibarretxe (PNV) was re-elected lehendakari.

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Euskadi 2009:

EHAK was banned in 2008 and the new left abertzale banner (D3M, Three Million Democracy) wasn't allowed to take part in the election. PNV and EA broke the coalition. In the 2008 General Election PSOE achieved a historic victory in Euskadi.

PNV won the election with 38.6% of the vote and 30 seats. PSE-EE got 30.7% of the vote and 25 seats. PP got 14.1% and 13 seats. Aralar 6% and 4 seats. EA 3.7% and 1 seat. EB-B 3.5% and 1 seat. UPyD 2.1% and 1 seat.

Invalid votes were 8.8%, around 100000 votes. Between 95 and 96 thousands were D3M ballots according with Pérez Rubalcaba, then Minister of Interior, and other sources.

The ban of Batasuna allowed a non-nationalist majority in the basque Parliament for the first time. Patxi López (PSE-EE) was elected lehendakari with the confidence and supply of PP.

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Beautiful.

Do you have maps of Andalucia elections ?

No, by the moment I haven't done. Look for the Andalusia 2012 thread, someone posted a map of that election. Also, there is another thread (I think that the link is in "special threads") around here where I found maps of some general election in Andalusia.

Catalonia 2006:

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Barcelona Metropolitan Region, 2007 Municipal Elections:

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Beautiful.

Catalonia 2010:

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In 2006 CiU won a plurality of seats and the popular vote, but the nationalists received less votes than in 2003 due to the low turnout. In 2010 Artur Mas achieved a great victory, while the Tripartite suffered an epic downfall. CiU got 38.4% of the vote (+6.9%) and 62 seats (+16).

Pasqual Maragall resigned in 2006 and was replaced by José Montilla, born in Andalusia, former mayor of Cornellà and Minister of Industry between 2004 and 2006. PSC dropped in the 2006 election, especially in the metropolitan Barcelona, but the 2010 election was disastrous: 18.4% of the vote (-8.4%) and 28 seats (-14).

In the 2006 Election PSC managed to win in 3 comarcas: Barcelonès, Vallès Occidental and Baix Llobregat. In the two first the margin was very narrow (Barcelonès: PSC 27.54%; CiU 27.46%; Vallès Occidental: PSC 29.54%; CiU 29.34%) In the stronghold of Baix Llobregat the PSC vote decreased significantly but the margin was higher: PSC polled 34.97% and CiU 24.12%.

CIU experienced a remarkable increase in the Metropolitan Barcelona in 2010, even when the numbers are compared with the 1999 election. Barcelonès: CiU 33.95%; PSC 20.17%; Vallès Occidental: CiU 37%; PSC 19.3%; Baix Llobregat: CiU 31.94%; PSC 23.45%. In some interior comarcas PSC polled below 10%. For example, in the very nationalist Osona PSC got only 9.05% of the vote, polling behind CiU (50.32%), SI (9.7%) and ERC (9.41%)

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In 2010 Alicia Sánchez-Camacho improved the 2006 Josep Piqué's performance. PP got 18 seats (+4), its highest record in a Catalonian election, and 12.4% of the vote. ICV-EUiA achieved a good result in 2006 with Joan Saura. The coalition performed very well in the city of Barcelona and, surprisingly, in the "deep Catalonia". The ICV-EUiA result was determinant in order to retain the Tripartite's majority. Joan Saura reclaimed more power and was awarded with the Interior portfolio in the Montilla's cabinet. In 2010 the coalition's vote decreased slightly: 7.4% (-2.1%) of the vote and 10 (-2) seats.

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The Catalonian independentism suffered various splits after an adversarial internal election. Joan Puigcercòs, the new ERC leader who replaced the conseller en cap (a sort of Catalan Premier) Josep Lluis Carod-Rovira, achieved a disastrous result. ERC dropped from 14% to 7% and from 21 to 10 seats. A new independentist party, Solidarity for Independence, was the surprise of the 2010 election and got 4 seats. SI is a populist and cross-ideological party which was led by the former Barça president Joan Laporta. Also in the party were some politicians coming from ERC and CiU and some people linked to the informal independentist referendums that were held in several Catalonian municipalities. Finally, Joan Carretero left ERC after losing the internal election and created Rally for the Independence (RI) with a poor performance in the polls.

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The Citizen's Party (Ciutadans, C's) was formed after a manifesto by a group of Catalan intelectuals very critical of Catalan nationalism. C's is regarded as a single-issue party due to its strong oposition to nationalism and language policies. Ideologically is supposed to be between liberalism and socialdemocracy, not too far from UPyD. It was the surprise in the 2006 election achieving 3 seats, all in Barcelona. In 2010 improved slightly and retained its seats. Its leader is Albert Rivera. Plataforma per Catalunya (PxC) is a party led by the xenophobic Vic councillor Josep Anglada. It's another single-issue party, this time far-rightist and centered in an anti-islamist speech. Anglada was previously in Fuerza Nueva , a Francoist party in the beggining of the Transition. PXC has achieved good results in several municipalities with a great portion of inmigrant population (Vic, Vendrell, Salt and various places in Barcelona's periphery). It got around 75 000 votes in 2010 and not too far from the 3% threshold in the province of Barcelona.

Superb work, andi.

Barcelona Metropolitan Region, 2011 Municipal Eelctions:

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Vote percentages in the maps for the Municipal Elections in the Metropolitan Barcelona: vote for candidatures. For the Catalonian elections percentages are "valid votes": vote to candidatures + blank votes (or NOTA).

Key:
PSC_PM: Socialists' Party of Catalonia-Municipal Progress. Center-left, Socialdemocracy.
CiU: Convergence and Union. Center-right, Liberalism, Christian Democracy, Nationalism, Independentism.
PP: People's Party. Conservative.
ERC-AM: Republican Left of Catalonia- Municipal Agreement. Left-wing Nationalism, Independentism.
ICV-EUiA:: Initiative for Catalonia Greens- Alternative and United Left. Green politics, Ecosocialism, Democratic Socialism, Communism. EUiA-BO: EUiA list in Olesa de Montserrat.
CUP: Candidatures of Popular Unity. Catalan Independentism, Socialism.
SI: Catalan Solidarity for Independence. Catalan Independentism.
Other: Mainly independent lists, also small groups like FIC (Independents' Federation of Catalonia).

Barcelona, 2011 Municipal Election:

CiU won in Barcelona by the first time and Xavier Trias was the first nationalist and non-socialist mayor elected in Barcelona since 1979.

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Councillors are elected at large. Barcelona is divided in 10 districts and the Minister of Interior data includes the results for them. The map above shows the CiU-PSC and PSC-CiU margins.

CiU won the election with 28.74% of the valid vote (vote for candidatures: 30.1%), while PSC got 22.14%. Each party won in 5 districts, but the margins were greater in those won by CiU: Sarriá-Sant Gervasi, Les Corts, Eixample and Gràcia. In Ciutat Vella and Sants-Montjuic the result was a virtual CiU-PSC draw.

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Party results by district. The best result for CiU was in the very affluent district of Sarriá-Sant Gervasi with 48.47% of the valid votes. In the same district PSC only got 9.65%. In the working-class district of Nou Barris PSC got its best record (34.3%) and CiU its worst (15.68%).

PP performed well in Sarrià- Sant Gervasi (22.46%), Nou Barris (21.4%) and Les Corts (21.61%) where the conservative party came second. The worst results for the conservatives were in Gràcia (11.8% and 4th place) and Ciutat Vella (14.54%). Inverse trend for ICV-EUiA which came third in Grácia (13.06%) and performed pretty well in Ciutat Vella (14.4%), with worst records at Sarriá-Sant Gervasi (5.15%) and Les Corts (6.65%).

Finally Unitat per Barcelona, an independentist coalition between ERC, SI and Reagrupament got 5.55% of the vote, a pretty mediocre result which allowed them only two elected councillors: Jordi Portabella and Joan Laporta. Gràcia and Sants-Montjuïc were the best places for that list.

Madrid, 2011 Municipal Election by district:

Alberto Ruíz Gallardón (PP) was reelected mayor. By the end of 2011 he was appointed minister of Justice and replaced by Ana Botella, wife of the former Spaniard PM José María Aznar. PSOE placed Jaime Lissavetzky, former secretary of Sports, as candidate. Madrid has been a PP stronghold since the 90's and a big mess for Spain's socialists. The blues won 20 out of 21 districts while PSOE won a plurality in Puente de Vallecas, a working-class district in Madrid's SE. There's a clear divide between the north and the south of the city. Salamanca and Chamartín (center-north), Chamberí (center) and Moncloa (west) were the better districts for PP. PSOE performed better in the SE districts (Vallecas, Vicálvaro, Villaverde, etc.). The United Left (IU) performed better at Centro and Vallecas (Villa and Puente). UPyD (Union, Progress and Democracy), the party of Rosa Díez, did better in the northern districts of Fuencarral, Hortaleza and Barajas, also in Retiro (centre) and Vicálvaro (east).

2011 Municipal Elections in the Region of Madrid:

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Credits: El País.

Navarre 2007:

The Navarrese People's Union (UPN) is a regionalist conservative party. The Navarrese regionalism is focused in the defence of the 'regional liberties' and the strong opposition to Basque nationalism. Navarre was an ancient medieval kingdom and has historical and cultural links with the neighbouring Basque Country. There's a clear divide between the Basque-speaking north of the region, between Pamplona and the French border, and the Castilian-speaking south, between the regional capital and the valley of the Ebro. UPN has been the hegemonic party in the regional politics since the 90's and rules the region since 1996. Between 1991 and 2008 acted as a Navarrese franchise of the Spain's People's Party (PP). The  Navarrese PP was dissolved and didn't run in any regional or local elections in Navarre during that period, while UPN and PP ran in a joint ticket for Spain's general elections.

The Basque nationalism in Navarre is minoritarian in the region as a whole, but particularly strong in the northern areas. Traditionally the abertzale left (HB and the like) was stronger than the traditional Basque nationalism. PNV has been always very marginal here, even weaker than Eusko Alkartasuna (EA), its split founded by Carlos Garaikoetxea, the former Basque lehendakari who was born in Navarre. The 2007 election saw the rise of a new coalition of the Basque nationalist parties: Nafarroa Bai (NaBai). The new force comprised Aralar (an HB pacifist split led by Patxi Zabaleta, who was the NaBai candidate in the 2007 election), Eusko Alkartasuna, the PNV, several independents under the label of Zabaltzen (as Uxue Barkos, Spain's deputy and candidate for Pamplona's mayoralty) and a left-wing group called Batzarre.

The abertzale left represented by HB, the ETA's political arm, tried to concur under the banner of ANV (Basque Nationalist Action), but the regional list was banned. However, several ANV lists concurred in the municipal elections which were held in the same date.

The Navarrese socialists (PSN-PSOE) have been played a secondary role in regional politics since the UPN-PP agreement. The party ruled the region in 1984-1991 (Gabriel Urralburu) and 1995-1996 (Javier Otano). In the last period the socialists formed a coalition with CDN (an UPN split led by the former regional premier Juan Cruz Alli) and EA.

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*In aquamarine the municipalities with ties between UPN and NaBai.

UPN won the 2007 election with 42.2% and 22 seats; NaBai got 23.6% and 12 seats; PSN-PSOE 22.05% and 12 seats; CDN 4.4% and 2 seats and IU 4% and 2 seats.

Further talks between NaBai, PSN-PSOE and IU in order to form a coalition government failed, due to the opposition of the national PSOE that feared an adverse effect of a pact with Basque nationalist (especially the independentist Aralar) in the rest of Spain. Finally the PSN-PSOE was forced to back the reelection of Miguel Sanz (UPN) as regional premier.

Navarre 2011:

Yolanda Barcina, previously mayor of Pamplona, replaced Miguel Sanz as UPN candidate. The navarrese PP was re-founded after the break of the agreement with UPN in October 2008, due to the UPN's refusal to back PP in the Spain's Congress during the budget debate.

Nafarroa Bai suffered the defection of EA (now in Bildu) and Batzarre (this time in coalition with IU), so the remaining coalition, called NaBai 2011, was comprised by Aralar, Zabaltzen and PNV and led again by Patxi Zabaleta.

Bildu was comprised by abertzale left independents, EA, Alternatiba (IU split) and other small groups.

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UPN got 34.5% of the vote and won 19 seats; PSN-PSOE 15.85% and 9 seats; NaBai 15.4% and 8 seats; Bildu 13.3% and 7 seats; PP 7.3% and 4 seats; IU-Ezquerra 5.7% and 3 seats and CDN lost its 2 seats.

Yolanda Barcina was elected regional premier leading an UPN-PSOE cabinet.

Regarding that municipal Madrid election, I get Vallecas, but why is Centro the most red dsitrict on the map ? I guess it's not the same type of population as Vallecas, verdad ?

No, the district of Centro is quite peculiar. As the name suggests comprises the central and older part of the city, including Puerta del Sol (KM. 0 of the national roads), la Casa de la Villa (Madrid's municipality HQs), the Royal Palace (the king doesn't live there nowadays) and distinctive wards such as Malasaña (center of La Movida in late 70's and early 80's) or Chueca (center of the LGTB community). While Centro is not the typical working-class neighbourhood like Vallecas, it's not a posh district such as Salamanca or Chamberí. There are popular wards such as Lavapiés and one of the main characteristics of the district is the high proportion of inmigrant population: according to the 2011 census, foreign population is 27% (the highest percentage in Madrid), including 36% of the Senegalese and 68.5% of the Bangladeshi living in the city. The Bangladeshi are the greatest group (8.8% of the foreigners in Centro) followed by Italians, Ecuatorians and Chinese. However, foreigners outside the EU can't vote.

Probably certain places like Chueca or Malasaña have been gentrified, and these wards attract a certain type of boboesque population that can switch between PSOE and IU. Since I don't know the results by precint, I'm just speculating, but I suspect that Gaspar Llamazares -who represents the 'open' new left inside the IU- must be quite popular among this group.

About Malasaña:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malasa%C3%B1a

In the 2011 General Election the results in Centro were: PP 41.52%; PSOE 27.64%; IU 12.12%; UPyD 9.26% and Equo 6.12%.

Just for comparison in the whole Madrid municipality PP got 51.51%; PSOE 25.72%; UPyD 9.72%; IU 7.89% and Equo 2.25%.

http://elecciones.mir.es/resultadosgenerales2011/99CG/DCG1228907999_L1.htm?d=1300

In the Municipal elections IU got above 18% of the vote in Centro, but Equo didn't run and the failed project of a Greenie party achieved some success in the following General Election in the district.

I had forgotten these maps of the region of Valencia that I had done the last year.

Valencia 2011:

I don't want to spread too much. Valencia is a fiefdom of the Spain's People's Party since 1995, when Eduardo Zaplana -previously mayor Benidorm, a 'charming' tourist city in the coast of Alicante- won a plurality in the elections held in that year and wrested the regional presidency from the socialists. That year Zaplana formed a coalition government with Unió Valenciana, a regionalist 'blaverist' (anti-catalan) conservative party. In the following elections, the People's Party consolidated its domain gaining with absolute majorities. The Valencian branch of PP became in a powerful organization inside the Spain's conservative party and Eduardo Zaplana was appointed Minister of Labor and Social Issues by José María Aznar, then the Spain's PM. Zaplana was replaced by José Luis Olivas as President de la Generalitat Valenciana, but Francisco Camps took the control of the party in the Valencian region and replaced Olivas after the 2003 election. Olivas enjoyed a gilded retirement in Bancaixa and became vicepresident of Bankia, a wonderful financial institution born by the merger of CajaMadrid, the aforementioned Bancaixa and other savings banks, which was presided by the former Minister of Economy and 1st deputy PM and later Managing Director of the IMF, Rodrigo Rato. Bankia went to bankruptcy and Rato stepped down by 2012.

The relationship between Zaplana and Camps deteriorated rapidly and the Valencian PP was divided between 'campistas' and 'zaplanistas'. Camps developed a particular style of government characterized by costly inaugurations and the promotion of events such as the F1 Urban Circuit in Valencia or the Pope's visit to the same city. Camps, who won a landslide in 2007 with 53.27% (votes to candidature), was implicated in a corruption scandal known as the Gürtel Case. That case threatened to undermine his political career and was the central issue during the 2011 campaign.
In spite of losing some support, Camps won comfortably the elections opposite to a very weakened PSPV (Socialist Party of the Valencian Country), led by the uncharismatic Jorge Alarte. On the left, the coalition between EUPV (IU's Valencian branch), the Valencian Nationalist Bloc, the Greens and others, broke after a disappointing result in the 2007 election and several internal crisis. EUPV and the new coalition Compromís -Valencian nationalists, plus  Valencian's People Initiative (IdPV) and ecologist parties-  ran in different lists in the 2011 election.

The result of the 2011 election was (percentages over votes cast): PP 48.53% and 55 seats (+1); PSPV-PSOE 27.5% and 33 seats (-5); Compromís 7.03% and 6 seats (+2)*;  EUPV 5.79% and 5 seats (+2)*

* Variation with regard to the deputies who had the Valencian Nationalist Bloc and IdPV on the one hand, and EUPV for the other one, inside the 2007 coalition, called Compromís pel País Valencià.

The surprise of the election was the good result of Compromís. The coalition's candidate was Enrique Morera (Bloc), but in the practice he did a tandem in the campaign with Mónica Oltra (IdPV), the most popular figure of the coalition due to her clashes with Camps in the regional parliament.

The CVA (Valencian Coalition) which appears in the map because it won in a small municipality, is a disgusting far-right 'blaverist' party. It gained a ridicolous 0.37% region-wide.

2011 Municipal Elections in Valencia:

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Leading parties in the municipalities of the Valencian region and results in the city of Valencia by district. Rita Barberá (PP) was easily re-elected mayoress of the regional capital.

EDIT: I made same changes in the Valencian maps.

Horrible Maps, ugh. But.. Buen trabajo ;)

Do you still want maps of the Madrid elections? ...I know you loove Esperanza Aguirre ;D :P. By the moment I'll post soon a map that I made of Aragón, which is a region that I like because of family links. I just need to draw the provincial boundaries (I felt too lazy to do so with Valencia).  At least the PSPV won Benidorm in the municipal elections, though lost Elche to the PP. In a sidenote, Orihuela and Villena, in the province of Alicante, elected green mayors thanks to anti-PP coalitions. The PP mayoress of Orihuela was as beautiful as incompetent. Orihuela, the town where the poet Miguel Hernández was born, is so conservative that it was a kind of miracle that PP didn't get an absolute majority there...

It'd be disgusting to see the "blue" Madrid, but, hey, do it. Fuenlabrada is still red haha..

Do you know why Orihuela has a green mayor? he finished 4th after PSPV and some local party. BTW, Orihuela = Murcia.

When you say something like that, my little buddy, you have to post a pic. ;)


Well, no, Orihuela es en la provincia de Alicante, though closer to Murcia.

OK. I spent a few minutes in Google Image Search. This photo illustrates a news, dated two months before the elections, in El Mundo online. Nothing new actually, just corruption related with urban development.


http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/03/25/alicante/1301070860.html

I like this photo, taken in Orihuela's Holy Week, because women wearing peinetas and mantillas have a strange attractive. Ask Julio for Dolores de Cospedal ;D

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Julio meant that Orihuela has more in common with the region of Murcia than with Valencia.

As for what Julio asked, sometimes the coalition agreements after the elections give strange results. PSPV got 6 councilors, the CLR 4 and the Greenies 3, adding 13 of 25 (PP got 12). The three parties agreed in giving the mayoralty to a certain Monserrate Guillén (Los Verdes), who thanked the socialists and the local party for their generosity. Btw, that local party, the CLR (Centro Liberal Renovador), claims to be a centrist party heir of UCD and CDS. One of the CLR's elected councilors is British, representing the foreign population in the town. In Benidorm the PSPV got the mayoralty thanks to the support of the 3 CDL (Centro Democrático Liberal) councilors. That group is comprised by former PP's zaplanistas. On the other hand, the greenies are like the several Judaic liberation fronts in The Life of Brian. Apparently the Orihuela's greenies go in coalition with IU, while the Villena's ones were in Equo. Not to mention the strange organic relationship between the Oltra's IdPV and Equo or that coalition called Compromís-Q. What a mess... :P

Edit: Definitely I don't feel comfortable posting photos of cute good looking politicians here, so I removed that one where Mónica Lorente, the former mayoress, was showing her legs. Sorry.

 

Madrid, May 2003:

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Explanations later. Julio, you can tell us something about the Tamayazo. Look, Sanse is still red ;). Also, I'm trying to make some Argentine maps (there are some uploaded to a blog of mine, link in the globe under my display name or through the profile). One of these days I'll finish the map of Buenos Aires province and maybe I'll open a thread about that fascinating and incomprehensible country.

Aragon 2011:

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I believe this map might appear in a jackson Pollock's exhibition. I have no time to spread on the subject. Let's say that the Elections to the Aragonese Corts were held on May 22, 2011. The outcome was as follows:

PP 41% winning 30 seats (+7); PSOE 29.97% winning 22 (-8); PAR 9.45% winning 7 (-2); CHA 8.5% winning 4 (nc); IU 6.37% winning 4 (+3).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_to_the_Aragonese_Corts,_2011

Those percenteges are over votes to candidature, whereas in the Wiki entry percentages are 'valid' votes (including blank/NOTA). In the following link, the electoral history of Aragon:

http://www.historiaelectoral.com/aaragon.html

As for the regionalist/nationalist parties in Aragon. Link (to the Spanish version, cause the English one is a meaningless stub) to the wiki entries of center-right Aragonese Party (PAR):

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partido_Aragon%C3%A9s

And to the left-wing Chunta Aragonesista (CHA, Aragonese Union):

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunta_Aragonesista

The CCA (Compromise for Aragon) is a split of PAR led by a former mayor of Teruel. It won in several small villages and got 3% in Teruel province (only 0.7% region-wide).

I have uploaded this to my blog alongside with some weird Mexican and Argentine maps, including one Gubernatorial election where the brother of Marcelo Bielsa (coach of the glorious Athletic de Bilbao) ran.

Wow, the Aragon map is beautiful (el bipartidismo ha muerto)! But, it was better when it was uglier and red was dominating the maps...

And the 2003 election in Madrid was the last time Sanse was won by PSOE, so I like the map. I probably hate the 2003.2. map, you'll have to show it for me. What I know is that my father couldn't vote in 2003.1. but voted in 2003.2. (people did the opposite thing :( )

Some maps of elections in Asturias. Below, the 2007 Regional Election:
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This one of the May 2011 and March 2012 elections is slightly different from those who are posted in the first posts of this thread.

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Edit: I tried to make more distinguishable FAC and PP colours on one hand and PSOE and IU on the other hand.

Andalusia 2012:

Leading party by municipality.

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Results in Seville by district and in neighbouring municipalities. It's a pretty polarized city as you can see.

Some weird maps of the Andalusian election. This one covers the area of the Bay of Cadiz and Jerez de la Frontera and shows the strenght of the main parties. ()

This one is the Bay of Algeciras (Campo de Gibraltar) and the comarca of La Janda, also in the province of Cadiz. I have no data for the Rock of Gibraltar ;D

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2011 General Elections in Madrid: Congress of Deputies.

Compare this map with the one of the 2011 Municipal Elections posted in the previous page.

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Ugh.

Veo que te doy una de cal y otra de arena ;D

Do you like these ones? Party strength by municipality in the 2012 election in Asturias. Some patterns are really obvious, especially regarding IU and UPyD.

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2011 General Elections in the city of Barcelona (results by district):


PSC's downfall with regard the 2008 Election is pretty obvious. The list headed by Carme Chacón fell from 42.84% in 2008 to 25.73% in 2011. Still, it won a plurality in 6 of the 10 Barcelona's districts. CiU repeated as well with Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida at the top of the list, managing to win a 27.66% (20.66% in 2008) and winning in the city by the first time, as it happened in the Municipal Elections 6 months before. PP got 21.33% (18.32% in 2008). ICV-EUiA got 10.04% (6.36% in 2008) and ERC a 7.14% (6.98%). Escons in Blanc got 1.84% and UPyD 1.29% (0.24% in 2008). Ciutadans (C's) got a 0.95% in 2008 and didn't run in 2011. Given the ideological similarities between the Catalan party and UPyD, it seems clear that the latter received voters from the first.

2011 Municipal Elections in the city of Valencia (also results by district):


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The main differences between the results of the May Municipals and the November General Elections (Congress of Deputies) are in the results of the coalition Compromís and UPyD. The PSOE scarcely managed to improve in November the terrible results of May and the results of the PP and IU (called EUPV in Valencia) were practically identical.

The coalition Compromís is comprised by the Valencian Nationalistic Bloc, Initiative of the Valencian People (IdPV, former EUPV members) and ecologists. The candidate for the mayoralty was Joan Ribó, before coordinator of EUPV (IU). In the General Elections, adding the Equo greenies to the coalition, the candidate was a former mayor of Sueca, Joan Baldoví, who was elected as the only representative of the Valencian nationalism in Madrid. EUPV (IU) managed to gain another seat in the province of Valencia. In the 2008 General Elections only PP (53.47% in the city) and PSOE (38.02%) won seats, while EUPV came in a distant third with a 3.23%. UPyD obtained a 1.15% and a coalition previous to Compromís, but comprised by the same parties, only got a 0.79%.

UPyD's candidate for the Generals in Valencia was the actor Toni Cantó who, with a somewhat populist speech, managed to get the third place in the Valencian capital and won a seat in the Congress of Deputies, the only one that UPyD obtained outside Madrid.

2011 General Elections in the Region of Madrid:

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The file size has been reduced. I'll be posting similar maps of the 2011 General Elections in other electoral districts (provinces or single-province regions).

I saw this yesterday on your blog. Glad to see Sanse is "less blue" than Alcobendas, Colmenar, Tres Cantos and other towns in the region.

And it's slightly more red, cause it's the only municipality in the northern periphery of Madrid where PSOE breaks 25% (more concretely, 26.65%), but still PP got 49.45% of the vote and UPyD 10.76%, while IU came behind with 8.43% and Equo only got 1.78%. A bit disappointing for IU and Equo, given that you had an IU/ later independent green mayor. 

However, my favourite area in the Madrid region is La Sierra Norte, just for the trivial reason that some small villages gave curious results, like Puebla de la Sierra, where 3 people voted for Anticapitalistas, a 6.38% of the 47 votes cast. With the same percentage in the whole Madrid there would be 2 guys or gals of the anticapitalist left in the Congress of Deputies, but the list only got a 0.13%. I'd like to meet the three anticapitalist guys or gals living in that village ;D

Cuando vino Tomás Gómez a Sanse se quedo impresionado por la afluencia al mitin que preparamos. Y la campaña fue todo un bombazo aquí, así que supongo que tiene algo que ver. De hecho, la noche electoral en Madrid había uno llorando (en Ferraz) y le dijo a una compañera: bueno, por lo menos en Sanse habremos ganado [la alcaldía], no?. Obviamente no lo hicimos, tras tres años de PSOE dividido en el pueblo y en plena marea azul, y además un partido de izquierdas local que son "los más guays" y nos quitan votos en las locales (mi padre, socialista de toda la vida, los ha votado 3 veces -no en 2011-). Pero visto ahora objetivamente parece ser que algo hicimos bien para que la tonalidad en las regionales fuera un rojo un pelín más oscuro... O quizá no tiene nada que ver y siempre hemos sido más rojos, no sé. Prefiero pensar que sí jaja..

Pero una cosa, tengo entendido que el PSOE sacó un 27% en Sanse (e IU superó el 10%) y un 25 y pico % en Alcobendas... No sé si son mis fuentes o las tuyas las incorrectas, espero que sean las mías porque yo no he hecho ningún mapa todavía y me fastidiaría jajaja

Alcobendas: PP 53.11%; PSOE 24.7%; UPyD 11.38%; IU 6.44%; Equo 1.68%.

http://www.infoelectoral.mir.es/min/busquedaAvanzadaAction.html;jsessionid=87EBEDC0825E6AC71BE218A513803820.app2

The data that I gave before for San Sebastián de los Reyes is the same (archivo electoral del Ministerio del Interior).

Probablemente confundiste las generales con las autonómicas de 2011; es probable que IU sacara más del 10% en estas últimas en Sanse.

Plz keep it in English, this is interesting stuff for us honkies as well.

OK, my (bad) translation of what Julio was telling in the previous post:

"When Tomás Gómez (general secretary of the Madrid PSOE's branch and rival of Rubalcaba) came to Sanse (San Sebastián de los Reyes, a suburban municipality to the north of Madrid city), he got impressed with the concurrence in the rally that we (the local socialists) have prepared. The campaign here was a smash hit. In the election night there was someone crying in Ferraz (PSOE's HQs in Madrid) and told to a comrade, 'at least we won in Sanse, didn't we?' Obviously we didn't, after three years of internal division in the town and in the middle of the blue's (PP) high tide and, besides, an independent left local party that steal our votes because they are the coolest. My father, diehard socialist, voted for the independent left three times, but not in 2011. However, looking with some perspective, it seems that we did something good here to see the colour red slightly darker... or maybe it has not relation and we've been always more red than our neighbouring municipalities, I don't know"

Haha, thanks, Dani. I think I'd have been able to translate that, but I was in a hurry and I had to write fast, something I can't do in English. And I enjoy writing in Spanish in an English-only forum :p. People should learn our great language!!!!

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Dicho esto, el mapa mola mucho. Se lo voy a enseñar a los líderes del PSOE aquí en Sanse para que tengan un motivo para ser optimistas, creo que se lo merecen, porque cada pasito que dan, va el PSOE nacional y retrocede 10 pasos (sea Pepiño, sea Ponferrada, sea un "monarquísmo" de algún lider...).

That said, the map rocks. I'll show it to PSOE leaders in Sanse [my town], so they have a reason to be optimistic, I think they deserve it, because each little step they advance, the national PSOE goes back 10 (Pepiño Blanco -former Secretary of Transportation- corruption cases, Ponferrada scandal, some random socialist standing up for the monarchy...).

Me llama la atención San Martín de Valdeiglesias, pasaron de un alcalde facha a uno socialista (el que estuvo hasta 2007) en 2011, es muy bipartidista en tu mapa y además muy azul... Qué pueblo tan raro.

It draws my attention that San Martin de Valdeiglesias elected a socialist mayor in 2011 (the same mayor they had before 2007, when PP won), that it's very bi-partisan in your map and very blue... What a strange place.

2008 and 2011 General Elections in Barcelona (province):

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In the city of Barcelona there was a 17% swing against PSC-PSOE. Outside the city, the swing against the Catalan socialists was around 20% in most of the municipalities. In the insets, leading party by district in the city.

Some examples of PSC's 2011 (2008) results in the main cities and regional centers:

Barcelona 25,73% (42,84%); L'Hospitalet 38,81% (57,58%); Badalona 32,6% (52,9%); Terrassa 29,6% (49,84%); Santa Coloma 41,18% (61,16%); Mataró 25,86% (46,1%); Vilanova i La Geltrú 30,24% (50,06%); Vic 14,14% (32,32%).

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Shouldn't ERC's and CiU's colors be exchanged?

it might be even worse. PSOE's federal executive is handling badly the crisis of the Catalan Socialists. A few days ago the PSC presented a watered-down federalist project, with proposals for constitutional changes, recognition of the plurality of nationalities inside Spain, etcetera. Clearly not sufficient, given how things are going in Catalonia. Nobody in Ferraz has noticed it, only Soraya Díaz attended the PSC's press meeting in Madrid. PSOE needs Catalan Socialists to win elections and, instead of helping them, they are helping to sink PSC a bit more. There is no project to face the "wizard independentism " ("independentismo mágico" in Joan Herrera's words) of Artur Mas and ERC. PSOE has a complex and is afraid of the reaction of the Spanish nationalism in the rest of the country and PSC is diminished opposite to the Catalan nationalism. At least that's my opinion and I know public opinion in Spain is not very favourable to federalism, but the Spanish socialists are still a bunch of cowards in my view.


Do you mean ERC replacing CiU as the main nationalist force? Maybe, who knows? Still, I think CiU has between 750,000 and 1 million of "captive" votes, people too moderate or conservative to vote for the Republican Left of Catalonia. On the other hand ERC is not too leftist nowadays or, at least, they are subordinating everything to the Independence referendum. That includes support for Artur Mas in the Catalan Parliament and for the budget, with cutbacks and all of that.

PSOE is dead, I know...

PSOE is still the second party, it's not dead still. I really don't understand why socialists aren't moving up. Rubalcaba has a strange obsession with pacts these days -and PP is laughing in his face- and it seems that everybody in his party is pretty lost. Instead of being defeatist, I think socialist militants should rebel against the direction and reclaim real changes, because it might be too late if PSOE has a bad result in the European elections.

Oh, I see that batmacumba meant that CiU and ERC colours should be exchanged in the map. I prefer CiU in yellow instead of dark blue and PSC's red and CiU's yellow make the colours of the Catalan flag, and with the ERC's purple we have the colours of the Spanish Republican flag ;D

What do you prefer, the old-fashioned CiU propaganda or the new logo? I hate especially the smile on the latter, I don't know why.

I prefer the new logo, by far.

PSOE is dead right now, it is. We try to change things, but we can't. Rubalcaba is part of the problem, but I think pretty much everyone is lost right now: Chacón, Patxi, Trini, Tomás...
I'm not supporting Patxi López anymore... There's a new possible candidate that I like more... Maybe you know her more than I do, because she's not from the Península :P. Patricia Hernández is my new favourite. I don't think she'll run, but I loooove her. I'm doing everything possible to have her come to Sanse and give a speech or something like that.

I predict she won't run (if I start thinking about it, she shouldn't, but people like her!) so I'll continue trying to have Patxi as our new leader (if we finnaly have primaries, I think Sanse will vote for him :D). But I'm liking Madina a lot. And, what's more dangerous... I'm loving Alberto Garzón and Gaspar Llamazares (I always liked him).

()

We have our first candidate. I don't dislike him, but if I have to vote for him, that means PCPE will get more votes than PSOE. Joan Mesquida:

http://www.publico.es/456527/mesquida-irrumpe-el-proximo-dia-11-oficialmente-en-la-batalla-del-psoe

Carme Chacón seems hollow to me and has turned into a traitress of her own party, the PSC. It's not that anybody could be an enthusiast with the new direction of the Catalan Socialists, composed largely for people without experience beyond the municipalities. Instead of discrediting PSC's positions to ingratiate herself with PSOE in the rest of Spain, if she was a brave woman and with project and compromised with her party in it's darkest hour, she will have given a step to the front in Catalonia. On the other hand, I see a worrying resistance to change in many people inside PSOE, with attitudes too much close to UPyD's centralist stances and unwillingness to reform the exhausted political model and the party system, which is rotten (including the 'alternatives': IU, UPyD and nationalists).

I believe Patxi López and Tomás Gómez have nothing to contribute and they look like representatives of the old politics. I'm still waiting for what Madina has to say. If Madina is elected with the support of PSOE's barons and apparatchiks, he will likely make a compromise with them, like Zapatero did. I don't know too much about Patricia Hernández, I'll try to fix my ignorance... why do you like her? I like Llamazares, without a great dose of enthusiasm, but I dislike IU's apparatchiks. Commies and True Leftists inside the IU distrust don Gaspar and, at the same time, I distrust them ;)

The new CiU logo sucks.

Oh, no! I mean, CiU using dark blue (they'd already assumed it in this new logo, but I always saw them being representaded by it, not by the old nationalist color) and ERC using some shade of orange.

CiU in dark blue is almost indistinguishable from PP in navy blue. I've seen CiU in yellow in several maps, for example this one of the 2008 General Elections:

() (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/22/mapaespa25c325b1aresult.png/)

On the other hand, I try to use an uniform colour code for all territories in Spain, as far as possible, and I use shades of purple for left-wing independentist parties. IU's colour is a mess, on the other hand. In Catalonia there's another party using orange in its logo:


Ciutadans or Party of the Citizenry. And ERC's logo has the colours of the senyera, the national flag of Catalonia. Catalan parties like the f***ing orange too much for my taste :P

2011 General Elections in the Basque Country:


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El Periódico de Catalunya releases today a poll in which, by the first time in modern History (I mean, from 1977 onwards), the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) would win the elections if they were hold today.


ERC could gain 39-40 seats in the Parliament of Catalonia (+18 or +19), whereas CiU would lower to 34-35 (-15 or-16), PSC would be in danger of losing the third place with 16 or 17 seats (-3 or -4), with ICV-EUiA gaining 15-16 (+2 or +3), PP coming behind with 13-14 seats (-4 or -5), C's with 12-13 (+3 or +4) and the CUP with 3 (n.c.).

http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/politica/erc-gana-elecciones-catalunya-2411278

More related to the topic, this graph shows the distribution of the vote to PP and PSOE among the electors located in the political center, in Catalonia (red) and the rest of Spain (blue), according to CIS post-election polls.

() (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/42/2008z.png/)

The most showy thing is that in the elections of 2008, in which PSC-PSOE obtained a crushing victory in Catalonia (see the map of Barcelona), the centrist vote had a totally opposite behavior in this region with regard to the rest of the country. In previous elections the behaviour in Catalonia was pretty similar to the rest of Spain.

I found the graph in this article (in Catalan, sorry):

http://www.cerclegerrymandering.cat/el-2008-la-cruilla-cap-la-independencia/

"In 2008 the center breaks. It had never happened before. We have to find the explanation in the statutory discussion that starts with the famous "I'll support" (the Catalan Statute) of Zapatero in the autonomic campaign of 2003 and that is the center of PP's political offensive in the 2008 campaign (as Rubalcaba has recognized recently). The most neutral sectors of the electoral body, which traditionally were moving by similar bosses in the whole territory, fracture between Catalonia and the rest (also it's possible to perceive the fracture in the Basque Country)".

The author thinks the 2008 Election was "the origin of everything" (regarding the independentist wave in Catalonia) because " it's on the basis of this differentiated result, this territorial break, the emergency of the cleavage center - periphery for the first time in general elections, that the actors begin to take their decisions. On the one hand, the PP becomes convinced of that the strategy (in spite of not having won) has been positive. If there's analyzed the behavior of the centrist electors of Spain without Catalonia, the PP advantage in 2008 is very similar to that of 1996, when they gained the first elections with Aznar".

"The other part is the most interesting, because until 2008  PSOE has played at accompanying the process of statutory reform (though not with the forcefulness of the round Zapatero's "I'll support" in Palau Sant Jordi). From the electoral result it can be said that the internal game is won by whom always they had distrusted the process. In Ferraz there are imposed those who think that the PSOE has won "in spite of " Catalonia, over whom they believe that it has done "thanks to" Catalonia. This one is the small change that will open the door for the rectification of the shot on the part of the central government, which will lead him to not intervening in the drift of the discussions of the Constitutional Court, which will finish with the famous sentence of July 2010, that will open  thunders' box".

Interesting. Just how left is the Republican Left? They seem assuredly separatist - does their leftism take back seat to that (I note there are other leftist separatists: ICV & SI, seemingly catering for hard-left nationalists)? I'm not a great fan of separatism, although it seems a straightforward thing in that I'd prefer ERC bums on seats as oppose to CiU (who they largely seem to be replacing).

The Republican Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, ERC) is socialdemocrat, and it's commonly placed between ICV-EUiA (a red-green coalition) and PSC. However, as SNP and similar parties, nationalism/separatism is the key point of ERC's platform. They're supporting the Mas' government for the attainment of the Catalan national agenda, but they're no taking part in the government and the 2012 budget has been extended to 2013.
ICV-EUiA is not separatist in strict sense. Both the militancy and the voters are divided to almost equal parts on independence. It supports a referendum and the right of the Catalans to decide their future, but also the position that defends a state where Catalonia has the status of a nation but inside Spain or an asymmetric federalist solution, has a certain predicament. It's complicated to describe. On the other hand SI (Solidaritat Catalana per la Independéncia) is not left-wing, they describe themselves as a "transversal" or "cross-ideological" force and neither its main figure in the past (Joan Laporta, who already is not in SI and endorsed Mas) nor the candidate in the last election (Alfons López Tena, ex-CiU) are leftists.

2011 General Elections in Navarre:

()

The coalition between the Navarrese People's Union (UPN) and the People's Party (UPN) won the elections in Navarre with 38.2% of the vote, winning 2 seats. PSOE came second with 22% and 1 seat. Amaiur (Sortu, Aralar, Eusko Alkartasuna, Alternatiba) came third with 14.9% and 1 seat. Geroa Bai (Independents + PNV) got 12.8% and 1 seat, a success due to the popularity of Uxue Barkos. No seats for IU (5.5%), UPyD (2.1%) and Equo (1.1%).

This seems a pretty neat place for a first post :P

I've actually looked at this through time and it seems really interesting. As a political centrist, it'd be cool to know where the main support for the old CDS and also Roca and Garrigues Walker's PRD came from? Madrid I suppose.

Also, it's amazing how much the electoral system distorts the real voting results.

Check http oi44.tinypic.com/35layhy point jpg (you know, can't link external websites yet)

Forgot to thank you for confirming my impressions of ERC, and the corrections re ICV-EUiA & SI.

Welcome. It's interesting the question about the old CDS. I miss a party like that nowadays, even when I am not a potential voter. As you know, the party was tied to Adolfo Suarez's personality and it's not of surprising that CDS' best electoral records were in Avila, his natal province.

Taking advantage of having spent several hours editing some Wiki file to have a provincial base map, here you have the distribution of the vote for the CDS in 1986 by province:

() 

CDS came third with 9,22% nationwide and 19 deputies. Madrid (13,94%) wasn't the best region for CDS, just the third best. The party got 17,46% in Castilla y León and 16,9% in the Canaries. Above 10% in Asturias (13,16%), Cantabria (12,96%), Balearic Islands (11,29%), Rioja (10,08%) and the city of Melilla. CDS got 4,12% in Catalonia, 5% in the Basque Country and 5,64% in Andalusia as worst records.

By province CDS won a plurality in Ávila (41,3%) and pretty good results in Segovia (23,48%), Las Palmas (21,14%), Salamanca (18,3%), Valladolid (16,97%), etcetera.

As for the PRD, it got only 0,96% nationwide (there weren't PRD lists in Catalan provinces because Roca was the CiU head of list). Only remarkable results in Balearic Islands (7,15%), because of Unió Mallorquina. Other than that, results in other provinces were pretty mediocre, polling above 2% in a handful of them.

I recommend you my primary source for this kind of stuff, if you want more details of the 1986 elections: Archivo Electoral del Ministerio del Interior.

http://www.infoelectoral.mir.es/min/


I forgot to mention the Candidatures of Popular Unity (CUP), which have 3 seats in the Catalonian Parliament. The CUP is a far-left separatist group, advocating for socialism and the Catalan Countries (Països Catalans), i.e., the three catalan-speaking regions (Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands) in a sovereign state independent from Spain. It's a party built from the base, that is to say, it works with assemblies. I know that some IU's hardliners envy the CUP for its 'true leftism'.

Ah, I was confusing SI for CUP.

[apparently I can't quote links nor images]

It's interesting the high support in Gran Canaria, I suppose it has to do with the fact that most CC people come from the UCD or CDS, as in more centrist than PP in Canarias, and yet more corrupt too. Also, talk to the Valencians about Països Catalans, they'll love that :P

It's however, interesting that it seems that UPyD kind of resembles CDS in terms of provincial voting. I suppose it had very much to do with appealing to a certain kind of moderate PP voter, who doesn't feel comfortable in PP but has no other option. There's a good reasons Azanar wanted to destroy CDS. Also, curiously, UPyD only governs in one town in Spain, and it's in Avila :P

Blaverism in the 80s went pretty nuts during the ideology conflict in Valencia (Reino de Valencia vs Pais Valenciano, UCD vs. PSOE, Blaverismo vs. Fusterian pancatalanism) as in bombing stuff.

EDIT: Does anyone know the electoral system used in 1977,79 and 1982? I know the current electoral law dates back to 1984 and Wikipedia mentions nothing.

You need more posts (10 or 20, can't remember) before you can.

Yeah, I know about posting them myself, but quoting? Well it seems odd to me.

You need 20 posts to copy links on the Forum, if I'm not wrong.


Well, I live in the Canaries and in my perception PP isn't less corrupt than CC, specially in Gran Canaria, the blue's stronghold in the islands. I could mention some corruption cases -mainly urbanistic affairs- in several municipalities governed by PP, but it might be a bit boring and off-topic. 

The Canaries were UCD strongholds in the 1977 and 1979 elections. In Las Palmas UCD won 5 seats out of 6 in 1977 and 4 in 1979. Most of the groups that later in the early 90's became the Canarian Coalition (CC) were made with former UCD politicians. CDS, of course, with the Gran Canarian Lorenzo Olarte, stronger in Gran Canaria. However, the main group inside CC was the AIC (Agrupaciones Independientes de Canarias), a conglomerate of 'independent' insular parties (mainly mayors elected in UCD lists, like Manuel Hermoso in Santa Cruz de Tenerife) which was stronger in the western islands and, above all, in Tenerife (ATI). In the eastern Canaries (Las Palmas), the main groups inside CC were Centro Canario (formerly CDS) and Canarian Initiative (ICAN), the later was the fusion of  the left-wing nationalist AC-INC and ICU, the former incarnation of IU in the islands lead by José Carlos Mauricio. Also AM, a left-wing insular party in Fuerteventura, and other insular parties linked with the AIC.


There are differences between UPyD and CDS in terms of provincial voting. I'll post an UPyD map of the 2011 elections later on, if you want to. For example, CDS performed better than UPyD both in Catalonia (it won 1 seat in Barcelona) and the Basque Country, even when CDS was relatively weak in these regions. To the contrary, Sevilla was one of the weakest provinces for CDS in 1986 (3,6%), while UPyD managed to get a 5,5%, above the party's national average (4,7%). Castilla y León was one of the best regions for UPyD in 2011, though with lower percentages, but not the Canaries.

On the other hand, even when there are some similarities between CDS and UPyD, because both parties are perceived in the centre of the political spectrum, they are not equivalent parties. Neither is the failed PRD project, which was lead by CiU's Miquel Roca and comprised groups like Unió Mallorquina, a nationalistic party of the Mallorca island.

Well, you know corruption is pretty extended. But I recently read some sort of independent study regarding parties' openess and clarity and apparently CC was the worst in these categories. UPyD was the best, but it's still not open enough, imho and then again being better than PP or PSOE is not too difficult.

Regarding the PRD/CDS vs. UPyD I think that it's because they don't occupy the same position in the spectrum. CDS was a centre party, that could and did accommodate nationalist interests like PP and PSOE did. While UPyD with its recentralization message is perceived as further right-wing than CiU and PNV in Catalonia and Basque Country. If I could link images, I'd show an interest graph that shows that while people in most communities place UPyD in the centre to centre-left, in the historic communities and Navarra, they are seen as right-wing.

Also, a poll by CIO (traditionally pro-CiU) taken in Catalonia also says that ERC would now the biggest problem. CiU f***ed big time with the independence message, their more moderate supporters will not vote them because of the radical message while their more radical, as expected, have decided, that given that there's a need for independence, ERC is the fastest way to achieve. This also why CU would double their seats. Huge fiasco. Can't say I'm sorry.

Meanwhile, PSC seems to be dying slowly and painfully, their costitutionalists running away to Ciutadans (like some modoerate PPeros)  and the more Catalanist sector going to ERC too.

CC guys aren't crystal water in many cases. However, people close to PP use to criticize CC's corruption when the party is in the opposition. I don't think CC is worse than Valencian PP or Matas' PP, on the other hand.

Of course the UPyD stance in the centralization/decentralization axis is pretty different. On the other hand, the 'operation Roca' was an attempt made from the periphery. By that time CiU, lead by Pujol, was still pretending to reform Spain and the Catalan separatists were a minority. I forgot to mention that PRD didn't run lists in Galicia too. There the PRD's reference was Coalición Galega, also former UCD members. The party was strong in rural Galicia, Lugo and Ourense provinces. They retained some clientelar webs, apparently. CG gained 1 seat for Ourense in the 1986 elections. On the other hand, CDS performed well in the Atlantic provinces, gaining 2 seats, one in La Coruña and another in Pontevedra.

Nowadays Galicia is one of the UPyD's 'black holes' (another big difference with CDS). I think it's no so strange and the reason may be sociological, alongside with the lack of popularity of the centralist speech in certain places. The vote for UPyD is mainly urban and Galicia is one of the less urbanized regions in Spain. On the other hand, apparently centralization is not so unpopular in Galicia, according to some polls (I'll have to look for them). The crisis is boosting centrifuge tendencies (separatism vs centralism).

UPyD in 2011. In the grayish provinces the party received less than 2,5% of the vote; in  Girona, Lleida, Lugo and Ourense, less than 1%.

()

The PSC's case is pretty desperate, yes. They are absolutely disorientated right now, and solution seems pretty complicated. It will be a terrible mess for the next leader of PSOE, I guess.

Perhaps the years in wilderness the PSOE will endure (and PP too soon) will be good. It'll humble them both and perhaps they'll learnt how to be more than power-hungry, power-grabbing giant political machines.

But Catalonia should be interesting in the future if they don't break up. So many parties should allow for the creation of a breed of politicians that accept deal-making and consensus-making in a far easier manner than the current generations, who are also overwhemingly Castillian (Suárez, Calvo-Sotelo, Aznar, Zapatero) , for some reason.

Btw, do you know what kind of subdivisions (as in ideological blocs/factions) are inside the PP? I've found very hard to find much info on their divisions.

This 2008 special feature from El Mundo about the post-2008 election anti-Rajoy movement and PP crisis is quite interesting and details who was pro and anti-Rajoy at the time. It's a bit reductive, but the hard right (including hardcore anti-separatists like Maria San Gil, Vidal-Quadras, Mayor Oreja) was against Rajoy while Rajoy was backed by the younger generations, many territorial 'barons' and the moderates.

http://www.elmundo.es/especiales/2008/06/espana/congreso_pp/index.html

Thanks! I'm amazed that in theory CDS merged with PP, so where did those liberales go? (not Aguirre-like liberals, that are more like dry tories than actual liberals, but actual ones)

In any case, in case you haven't heard Vidal-Quadras created his own breakaway from PP, similar to Conde's SCD (which ironically, Conde has already abandoned lol) and apparently tried to recruit a high-profile PP man like Mayor Oreja.

I'm reall fond of the Basque PP in any case, either with the moderate positions of Basagoiti or Oyarzabal or just the fearless attitude of San Gil, even if she was hard right, she didn't sell herself to the nationalists for a piece of power, and that's as close to integrity as you get in Spanish politics.

Also, it seems like poor Madina is being hunted, check today's Antena3 news or this: elmundo dot es slash elmundo slash 2013 slash 06 slash 20 slash espana slash 1371744423 dot html [agg, let's see if I can reach 20 posts ASAP, this is tiring]

The 'autonomic barometer' made by CIS, released in May 2013 (interviews were made between September and October 2012, in coincidence with the Diada demonstration in Barcelona) showed a boost of centralist tendencies in the Spain's interior regions, particularly strong in Madrid and Castile.

http://www.cis.es/cis/export/sites/default/-Archivos/Marginales/2940_2959/2956/Es2956_mapa_html.html

The question #12, referred to the organization of the State, showed that centralism had a 56,5% support in Madrid, 56,2% in Valencia, 55,6% in Castilla y León and 55,2% in Castilla-La Mancha. Three years before, percenteges were much lower (around 38% in Madrid). In Galicia 31,4% was in favour of more centralism and 49% of the status quo. Obviously results in Catalonia were quite different, with 13,9% supporting centralist options (suppression of the autonomous communities or less devolution), 16,7% the current system, 27,7% in favour of more devolution and 37,4% supporting the chance for the regions to get independence. In the Basque Country centralist options had a very little support (5,8%).

CEO poll in Catalonia:

ERC 38-39 seats; CiU 35-37; PSC 16; PP 13-14; ICV-EUiA 13-14; C's 12; CUP 6.

http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20130620/54376822932/erc-ganaria-elecciones-catalunya-ceo.html

As for Madina:


I checked the news here:

http://www.antena3.com/noticias/espana/madina-niega-valenciano-rodriguez-liderar-corriente-critica-partido_2013062000171.html

Apparently Madina needs to be cautious if he wants to have chances in the next socialist primaries and I guess that he's not in an easy position right now. On the other hand, if he's really critic with PP-PSOE recent agreements, at least there's a little hope for PSOE.

I find that really interesting. It's like we're heading in a collision course in which Castilla (& associates) desire a more powerful central state while peripheric regions push for more autonomy. That's just bad news.

Also, the last PSOE proposal for decentralization of justice. Awful, it'd make the regional tribunals subject to regional governments and leave the Supremo as a worthless institution. And that, well, sickens me. Our justice is already sh*t and politicized, we just don't need to be even worse and become another part of the 18 reinos de taifas (borrowing from Toni Cantó)

In my opinion that collision between opposite tendencies only can be solved by a sort of asymmetric federalism, given that peripheral regions want more devolution and the interior regions a stronger central administration. That's why I'm not fond with UPyD stances for centralism or symmetric federalism.

As you say, the politicization of the Justice is a great trouble. Regarding territorial conflicts, in my opinion the 2010 sentence by the Constitutional Court on the Catalan Statute was, to a great extent, based on political criteria and has damaged very much. The depoliticizing of the high courts is an urgent matter and not very easy to lead to term.

I don't have an opinion on PSOE's proposals on Justice right now. Of course, if it leads to a Reino de Taifas regime, I would be against. On the other hand, decentralization of Justice is not bad per se, it depends on how it's expressed.

From what I've read, it'd turn the regional justice tribunals (liek the TSJC) into last appeal courts except in extremely serious case, in which case the TS would intervene. The role for the TC? No idea and ofc the CGPJ would lose all its power. This plus Gallardón's "reform" would just turn our justice into a banana republic one. This is the stuff by far that most sickens me about our political system.

Also, there's this blog "Comitia Mundi" has an interesting on how Spanish parties use populism and how it manifests in different ways.

(Newbie question: I can't send nor read my PMs, so how do I contact the admins to fix the problem if I can't PM them?)

It's a generalized problem, so he should be aware at some point.

From Nanwe (he can't post links):

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=35layhy&s=5

Salud y República!

Ah, the old complaint about our imperfect electoral system ;). I think we can discuss election-related issues on here but, on the other hand, certain topics Nanwe introduced in the discussion would be better in a proper thread, in the International General Discussion board. I didn't answer all the topics and I have my own opinion, of course. The question is that we are too few Spaniards on here and I'm not sure if people from abroad cares too much. I'm Republican at heart and, by the way, I've been reading something really sad about the period of the Civil War (Max Aub's Campo del Moro and Campo de los Almendros, to be precise). I'd like that Salud y República was something more than a mere slogan.

Falangist cries were better :P They shouted '¡CAFE!' (meaning: compañeros, arriba Falange Española) .

Oh yes, the good ol' issue of electoral reform. I would be content (though not really satisfied) with the use of the Hare formula with the already existing 52 constituencies, since it's the easiest way to change the electoral law.

andi, do you happen to know about Portuguese politics? I'm doing a project about a Spain including Portugal but basically I know nothing of Portuguese politics :( .

Just generic, I'm far from knowing politics in Portugal in depth. Spaniards are not in the habit of paying too much attention to their neighbours. What kind of project is yours?

As for electoral systems, the only that I like is the mixed-member proportional representation (Germany, New Zealand). Not so popular in Spain, I only heard some vague allusions from Rubalcaba and certain nasty proposals by Aguirre and her butler successor about introducing single constituencies in Madrid.

Doubled. :)

I don't want to cool down your enthusiasm, but CEO (a sociological institute depending on Catalan government) predicted 70 seats for CiU, the governing party, and finally only got 50. Another recent poll gives the CUP only 3 seats. Both polls coincide in stating that the center-left separatist ERC is gaining ground at the expense of the center-right sovereignist CiU and it's likely surpassing it. I think it makes sense in the current context, but I'd be cautious about the polls. On the other hand, if you don't sympathise with separatism, wouldn't be ICV-EUiA a better option for you?

Oh yeah, ICV-EUiA would be my vote but I wouldn't mind more leftists in parliament (even if they are seperatists).

I like MMP too. But it would require changing the Constitution (unless the single constituencies were based on the provinces, in which case, they wouldn't be single-member ones and I don't know to what extent opening up the Constitution is such a good idea. Yeah, I remember reading about Rubalcaba's proposal in Publico two summers ago or so, but I haven't been able to find the article online. I also looked at Gonzalez's proposal and although I like MMP, the proposed constituencies were not even close in their population. It gave the various neighbourhoods of Madrid too much weight (or  rather the large cities, like Alcala not enough)

As Julius Caesar told to Brutus: "You too my son?" It's amazing how many followers of the doctrine Rajoy are around. The only way of reforming Spain is "opening" that sacred and incorruptible Constitution.


That's why I said Aguirre's minion proposal was "nasty".

Opening the Constitution is going to be messy, really messy and no one has a clear idea of what they want. Personally, I'd prefer that the Constitution laid down the competences of the autonomies, possibly repatriating education and/or healthcare (the latter is more politically feasible,I 'd say) to Madrid. I did some outline of changes in the Constitution I'd like to see. But there are worse (by far) things in the different organic laws than the Constitution itself.

I'm not even opposed to the monarchy :P The problem with modifying the Constitution is that unless you change the 1st or the 2nd Titles, it can be changed without any kind of public referendum, which is scary. And no one wants to change the 1st Title, AFAIK. The Crown one, on the other hand...

Well, I hadn't monarchy in mind in the previous post. I see pretty useless replacing our King for a President without making some fundamental changes. One thing is to be Republican at heart and another is to think that a Republic is the magic medicine that will cure all our diseases.

Of course a reform would be messy and scary, because the constitutional design was made in a way that changes are extremely difficult. However, see how PSOE and PP arranged a little but significant reform in our Constitutional text when Zapatero was under pressure by the infamous Troika.

I'm afraid that you are a loyal UPyD supporter and I don't like very much the idea of re-centralization. If the idea behind giving back the Spain's Government competences on Education is replacing one nationalist view with another, sorry, I'm not very enthusiastic with that perspective. The problem with such views is that they pretend to apply homogeneity in an extremely heterogeneous country. As for Healthcare, in fact many regions didn't want the competences when Aznar decided to give them; "café para todos" ("coffee for everybody"), said Pujol. This don't apply for Catalonia, Basque Country and other places. It's not viable forcing regions with a great will of self-rule to give back power. On the other hand, I doubt it would be desirable, maybe with the exception of regions where people want less autonomy. Just food for separatism and unrest, and I think waters are troubled enough right now.

Oh, and there is that nasty administrative reform that Rajoy is proposing, without changing nothing important and hoping that regions will make the dirty work, because in many cases competences are transferred. 

This discussion is going too off-topic. Should I start another thread?

     As I understand it, they initially intended to only apply the name of "autonomous community" to Galicia, Basque Country, and Catalonia, but that idea fell by the wayside when other regions decided that they wanted similar recognition. Considering the differing traditions of the different regions, I think it would be good to revisit the issue of recognizing those regions that are more culturally independent from Madrid than the norm.

As to decentralisation: An interesting and worthwhile target may be regional and local transport (especially the rail bound part). Inspired by the example of the French TER, German rail reform included transfer of local and regional lines (essentially everything that is not high-speed or freight-only) to the States, giving them full network ownership as well as authority to regulate (and typically also the duty to subsidise) local and regional traffic. This has lead to the reopening of many lines that had been closed in the 1980s, and, together with quality improvements pushed through on State level, resulted in steadily rising passenger numbers.
I am not sure if decentralising healthcare is a good idea. The supply side is fine (but isn't that already quite decentralised in Spain?). However, if you start to also decentralise the revenue side / financing mechanisms, you are potentially making things more complicated for larger companies and especially international investors, and that is not necessarily what Spain needs right now. 

When I read Andy, I feel we have the same opinions on everything. We should form a new party or something.

Now that this is off-topic enough, what's your opinion about Miguel Ángel Revilla? For those who are not Spaniards, he served as President of Cantabria from 2003 to 2011 in a coalition with socialists. In 2011, PP won an absolute majority but the "Partido Regionalista cántabro" got the best results ever, with almost 30% of the vote.

I actually like the guy, I had the opportunity to meet him on the Feria del Libro, last weekend, and decided to buy his book. I've just finished reading it. It was really fun and at the same time I think he has some good ideas on the economy.

Which is kind of my position. I am in theory a republican, but at the moment the status quo in regards to the monarchy is fine by me, probably make Juan Carlos abdicate and clean it up, but obviously, a Republic is still too much politicized (reds, commies, workers' paradise, if Franco raised his head, blah, blah, blah)


Well that was the idea. The whole 1977 democracy was designed to avoid the many many flaws of the 19th century liberal state and the 2nd Republic political processes. In fact even at the times of 1976's Ley de asociaciones politicas speech by Suarez (as Secretario General del Movimiento under Arias-Navarro) was unequivocal about 'a state that neither recognizes nor persecutes contrary political ideas, but rather ignores them altogether, would be too similar to the 19th century liberal state' Ofc liberal being a dirty word back then.


Don't be afraid :P Secondly, I'm not a 'loyal UPyD supporter' and indeed I defend federalism, not the current messy system. But my main concern about decentralization is that many communities are one party regions (PSOE misrule in Andalucia, PP misrule in Valencia) and that will politicize education. Nevertheless, education is ok by me, as well as it is, to a lesser degree, healthcare. Healthcare is just too damn expensive to run at a regional level, except for big autonomies like Madrid, Catalonia or Andalucia. My main problem is that we have some regions that make no sense due to being too small (yes, I'm pointing at you, Cantabria, Asturias, La Rioja and perhaps Murcia) or too big (Andalucia).

In any case a small amount of recentralization is rational in economic aspects. For example, the recent Ley de unidad de mercado, which will force all CCAA to have same regulations for products and licensing. It's common sense, you can't have 17 different standards within a country for that.

A different system of regional equalization needs to be set up. The current one makes sense, from what I've read, Valencia gives money to the Vascongadas (just wanted to say it like that :P) when the Basques are one of the richest regions in Spain and all because of the silly fueros, an absolute feudal anachronism.

Also, I'm not a Spanish nationalist, in fact, I am not a fan of nationalism, although it seems as if being Catalan nationalist was more acceptable than Spanish (well, Franco and what not) but to me, it's as silly and as bad.


Now, I didn't say Rajoy had balls, did I? :P


It is probably a good idea, I didn't want to change the thread's raison d'être.

PiT, it also included Andalucia (for some reason) because of the influence of the Andalucist lobby within UCD, but well, the process was a mess and at the end many pf regions were created artificially.

I don't know much about Revilla, but here's something I don't like about him, perhaps it's because he's a bit of a populist.

Initially, the 1978 Constitution established the notion of a Spanish nation but simultaneously it was recognizing the existence in her bosom of nationalities and regions. Nevertheless, it didn't establish different types of regions or " autonomous communities ", simply it established different terms for autonomy, admitting self rule first for the regions which approved autonomy statutes in the 30s (II Republic): Catalonia, Basque Country and Galicia. Andalusia celebrated a plebiscite in 1980 to accede to the autonomy by the so called " fast route " ("vía rápida") and to be recognized also as " historical nationality "; alongside with the aforementioned three "historical" regions, it got autonomy before the rest of Spain. There was the possibility of certain 'asymmetry' giving more competences to the "historical" regions, if they demanded it. It was established a Constitutional Court which would act as a regulatory agent of the future decentralized state. Finally, the Constitution advocated for giving autonomy for all regions in the future.


From what I was trying to find out, a majority of regions have assumed railroad competences on the paper. Seemingly only Catalonia, the Basque Country, Valencia and Balearic Islands have assumed them in the practice, and only in the cases of the narrow-gauge railroads (FEVE) and suburban trains, but not railroads attached to the national network (RENFE), even when routes don't trespass regional limits.  These constraints are due to the "decrees of transfer" issued by the Spain's government. I agree on what it would be a great idea giving regions more competences to revitalize local lines, because it has been put a great emphasis in the construction of high-speed rails to the detriment of conventional railroad.

As for Healthcare, financing mechanisms are a terrible mess :P, I'll try to give an answer later on.

I said a Republic, not a 'People's Republic'. There are a lot of myths regarding our last Republican period, the Civil War and blah, blah, blah.


I'm aware of the difficulties and fears existing in that period. I only state that reform mechanisms are difficult and, since some time ago, several things might have been changed. If you remember, Zapatero proposed some light reforms (Senate, dynastic succession, etc.) which remained in the booth. I don't know if I must blame him or the polarized environment in Zapatero's legislatures (the Right was basically trolling since 2004).


My apologies for that. You have coincidences with UPyD party line, but this doesn't make you a 'loyal supporter' (it wasn't a derogatory characterization, in any case). I didn't mean that you were a Spanish nationalist or something (sorry again), but I fear that some supporters of a certain re-centralization might be in that line (Wert's attempts on Educational reform, for example). By the way, and it's a great coincidence, today I read an article by Rosa Díez in El País where she states her views on the "state of the autonomies" and advocates for a Constitutional reform (here, she differs from you) to establish an 'egalitarian' federalist formula with 'closed' competences. I agree in some parts with her diagnosis, but when she reaches the question of peripheral nationalism... Well, I was never a fan of raising the speech in terms of "appeasement".

http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/24/opinion/1372091894_899657.html

(The article is in Spanish)

I think almost everyone in Spain is aware of the need of making a broad reform of the system. Some examples that you mention are clear signs of disfunctionality. On the other hand, I think subjects like educational policies shouldn't be exclusively on the government's (regional or central) hands. Indoctrination may come from both sides. I think it's more a question of making society participate in the design of the educational programs, and putting on experts' hands, rather than on the politicians', some questions like how we must teach History.

As for the anachronic fueros, my position right now is surprisingly close to the one that PSOE's Federal Executive stated recently: Concierto is not debatable, Cupo is revisable. 'Concierto económico' is the special fiscal regime in force in the Basque Country and Navarre. 'Cupo' is the amount of money that Basque and Navarre treasures give to the Spain's Exchequer. If you pretend to abolish the fiscal particularities in those northern regions, you'll probably have to face a revolt. Nearly all Basques and Navarrese are foralistas, including supporters of 'national' or 'non Basque' parties. I think it's more a question of pragmatism and common sense rather than an 'appeaser' attitude.

As for Revilla, he's a bit of a populist, but I find him friendly and harmless.

     I see, so it was always intended for the rest of Spain's regions to eventually join the original three autonomous communities. In that case, I am also curious to know: how decentralized would you say Spain's government actually is? I am not too knowledgeable about the matter, but it is something that really interests me.

Sorry for the delay, PiT. I think Spain is highly decentralized nowadays, but the model needs to be redesigned because of some malfunctions. On one hand regions have tried to reproduce the structure of the central government in their territories, on the other hand the Spain's government mantains an administrative structure in areas where competences have been transferred. A clarification is necessary. Also, it's important to find the way of handling the differentiated identities in the periphery, which is complicated.

Some maps of different Spanish parliamentary elections in Catalonia. There are four provincial circumscriptions: Barcelona, Tarragona, Girona and Lleida. There exists an administrative subdivision called comarca, which is a group of municipalities. In the Catalan Electoral Archive it's possible to check all results of the Spanish elections since 1977 at all levels (regional, provincial, comarcal and municipal).

Leading party in 1977-1982 elections

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In the 1977 and 1979 there was a remarkable atomization, both in the global results and in the geographical distribution. In the 1977 elections CiU didn't exist. CDC ran in a coalition called Democratic Pact for Catalonia (PDPC) with Partit Socialista de Catalunya-Reagrupament (PSC-R), the National Front of Catalonia (FNC) and the Democratic Left of Catalonia (EDC). UDC ran in a coalition called Union of the Center and the Christian Democracy of Catalonia. In 1979 CDC and UDC joined in Convergence and Union (CiU). PSC-R merged with PSC-Congrés and PSOE into the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC); EDC splitted in 1978 in two wings, one merged with CDC and other with ERC; FNC survived until 1982, running in coalition with ERC in the 1979 elections.

In 1977 PSC-PSOE won the elections in Catalonia with 28.55% of the vote, winning 15 seats. The Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC), the PCE counterpart in Catalonia, came second with 18.31%, winning 8 seats. UCD (16.91%) and PDPC (16.88%) came behind, but winning more seats than PSUC (UCD 9, PDPC 11) due to malapportionment and the geographical distribution of their vote. UDC got 5.67% (2 seats); ERC and allies 4.72% (1 seat) and the Fraga's People's Alliance (AP) 3.55% (1 seat). 

By that time PSUC vote was highly concentrated in Barcelona and its industrial periphery (with highest peaks at Baix Llogregat and Vallès Occidental), although the party performed strongly in the Tarragona province (especially in Tarragonès and Montsià) and in interior comarcas like Segrià (includes Lleida city), Bages or Berguedà. PSUC got 7 seats in Barcelona (19.85%) and 1 in Tarragona (16.37%), but couldn't win seats in Lérida (12.21%) and Gerona (10.10%)

Vote for PSUC in 1977 (2.5% scale):

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PSUC, which was living through strong internal tensions, sank in 1982, obtaining only 4.61% and 1 seat. The pro-Soviet Party of the Communists of Catalonia (PCC), splitted from PSUC in 1981, got 1.37% of the vote. However, in the following year's municipal elections, PCC won some mayoralties in the Barcelona metropolitan region.

A very different landscape. 2004, 2008 and 2011 General Elections:

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Looking at those maps it seems pretty obvious how the collapse of the Spanish right in '82 (Fraga  and his rejection fo the political aspects of the Pactos de la Moncloa excluded him from the political process in Cataluña) made pretty much the whole Lérida to shift to the Catalonian right, instead of a españolista/constitucionalista one. From looking at 1977/79 results it seems UCD was also quite successful in rural Tarragona.

Is that some sort of old cultural divide between more pure Catalanism (as in Gerona) and Lérida and Tarragona that the latter more inclined to vote UCD? I know UCD avoided the españolista message that AP/PP used/s and indeed supported autonomy to a degree, but it's quite spectacular the collapse of the non-nationalist right in Lérida from '79 to '82, nonetheless.

PD: A weird question, do you know of electoral polls from 1981? I'm thinking of writing a mini-story where shortly before the Congreso de Mallorca (3rd UCD Congress) he decides to call new elections to strengthen the party (rally the flag effect). In theory, according to Gregorio Morán, he would have proceeded to form a government of coalition with PSOE as a junior partner (some sort of Italian 'trasformismo' à la Spanish) but he failed by little.

Perhaps the existence of Centristes de Catalunya (Centrists of Catalonia, CC), that was an UDC's split and made a coalition with UCD in the 1979 elections might explain the strength of UCD in some rural Catalan comarcas (counties).

CC was lead by Antón Cañellas, formerly the UDC leader. UDC was divided between Catalan nationalists and the Cañellas faction. The latter wanted to create a big centrist Catalan party that was the equivalent of the Bavarian CSU, whereas Adolfo Suárez's UCD would be the equivalent to the CDU in the rest of Spain. Cañellas was the CC-UCD candidate in the 1980 Catalan election. Finally Jordi Pujol and CiU became in the Catalan CSU, though there wasn't a CDU beyond the Ebro river (remember the 1986 election and the failure of Miquel Roca's project).

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centristes_de_Catalunya-UCD

I'll address the rest of your posts, here and in the JP Morgan's thread, later on (I need to take my time and now I'm in a hurry). I'll give a reply in a single post here, just to 'centralise' ;)

After seven months, new updates with regional elections.

This map shows the combined strength of the nationalist forces in the Galician parliamentary election held in October 2012. The Galician Left Alternative (AGE)*, a coalition between Anova (BNG split led by Xosé Manuel Beiras), EU (United Left in Galicia), Equo (greens) and the Galician Ecosocialist Space (a little BNG split) was the big surprise of this election, getting 13.9% of the vote and 9 (+9) seats. The Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) got 10.1% (-5.9%) of the vote and 7 (-5) seats. Compromise for Galicia (CxG), a new coalition made by some BNG splinters (the socialdemocratic Mais Galiza was the most important) and small center-right regionalist forces, only got 1% of the vote.

*_{Including IU and Equo, two national forces, AGE was a coalition between Galician independentists, nationalists and federalists}

Discarding the vote from abroad, the three nationalist forces got 25.16% of the votes cast in Galicia. The AGE was particularly strong in the urban centers, displacing PSOE from the second place in A Coruña (AGE 20.6%; PSOE 19.5%; BNG 7.6%) and Santiago de Compstela (AGE 21.8%; PSOE 16.5%; BNG 8.5%). To the contrary, BNG performed pretty bad in the most populated municipalities and only surpassed the AGE in Pontevedra (PSOE 18.8%; BNG 18.6%; AGE 13.1%), a nationalist stronghold with a BNG mayor. BNG results improved a bit in small and medium-sized towns (e.g. Carballo: BNG 19.9%, PSOE 16.4%, AGE 10.1%). The nationalist strength tends to be higher in the coastal Galicia, whereas it declines the interior countryside, specially in Lugo and Ourense provinces. Aside a few nationalist strongholds in Ourense (Allariz and A Bola, won by BNG; Vilar de Santos, the only municipality in Galicia won by the CxG), some areas where nationalism is stronger are the municipalities around El Ferrol (e.g. Fene, a mixed rural-industrial town where AGE got 24.3% and BNG 14.5%) and Santiago de Compostela (Teo has an Anova mayor and AGE got its best result in Galicia with 26.9%), the Barbanza region (SW of A Coruña province) and O Morrazo, a comarca placed in the north shore of the Vigo Ria with capital in Cangas (AGE 23.2%; BNG 15.3%), a town which economy is based on fishing and the manufacturing of tinned food and is traditionally a left-wing nationalist stronghold.

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Here, results by party and district in the city of Barcelona in the Catalan elections held in November 2012. Soon, I'll make some maps of the city by quarter.

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I've edited the maps of local and parliamentary elections of Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia posted in pages 2 and 3 of this thread, using the same colour scale with 2.5% steps like the map above. Maybe, I'll post later Seville and Saragossa.

Given that the result of the past EP elections marks some interesting trends -with an eye in the forthcoming municipal, regional and parliamentary elections in Spain- and I made some maps, I proceed to make an update for this thing.

Leading parties by province:

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I have plenty of provincial maps, showing the territorial strength of the 10 lists which got representation in Strasbourg posted here:

http://saintbrendansisland.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/elecciones-europeas-de-2014-en-espana/

Anyway, it'd be more interesting focusing on municipality, district or even neighborhood levels in certain places where key electoral battles are going to take place next year. I was making some Madrid maps and likely I'll do Barcelona as well.

2014 EP Elections in the Region of Madrid:

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The boundary of the Madrid supermunicipality, which occupies a large section in the centre of the region, is lined in yellow and showed with its 21 inner subdivisions or districts.  

EDIT: Colour upgraded one tone. Source: MIR election archive, official results.

Its very interesting, but while I can easily spot Vallecas and its surroundings as left-wing power zones, I can't determin if PSOE, Podemos or IU since their light shades are all the same. Could you possibly use colors easier to tell apart ?

Is the south-west Socialist stronghold Alcorcon? Also, what are the potential university districts and how do students tend to vote in Madrid?

This thread is a gold mine btw, really impressive work!

It's an option, but there are too many parties in Spain and not so many colours. I could upgrade the scale one tone as well, so hopefully the purple (Podemos) could distinguish better from the red (PSOE). I'll think about that. In any case, Podemos won a plurality in the following two municipalities:

Rivas-Vaciamadrid: Located 15 KM to the SE from Puerta del Sol, in the centre of Madrid. It's one of the fastest growing municipalities in Spain (around 80k nowadays) and it attracts people from the capital and the metropolitan area due to high standards of living, environment and public services. The two bigger neighbourhoods were built by cooperatives linked to the two main Spanish labour unions: Covibar by CC.OO (traditionally linked to PCE) and Pablo Iglesias by UGT (PSOE). Note that the latter is named after Pablo Iglesias Posse (1850-1925), a printer who founded PSOE in 1879 and UGT in 1888. I don't have evidence that Pablo Iglesias Turrión, the leader of Podemos born in 1978, has family links with the elder socialist leader. As far as I know, he was named Pablo because his parents are socialist activists and Iglesias is a relatively common family name. Iglesias' girlfriend, the IU regional deputy Tania Sánchez Melero, is from Rivas. The town is very singular, sociologically speaking. It has a high standard of living and it appears to be a mixture of 'aristocratic' working class (the cooperative members) and progressive bobo population attracted from other places. Also, Rivas is known because of a natural park which covers 3/4 of the municipal area and the municipality was awarded for being "the most sustainable city". It has been governed by IU since 1991. Likely the most outstanding mayor was José Masa.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivas-Vaciamadrid

Results: Podemos 21.1%, IU 17.2%, PSOE 17.1%, PP 15%, UPyD 12.1%, Cs 4.3%, PE (Equo) 2.3%, Vox 1.8%.

La Hiruela: A small village (pop. 51 in 2013) in La Sierra Norte. The result was kinda weird: Podemos got 8 votes (29.6%), Vox 6 (22.2%), PP 4 (14.8%), IU 3 (11.1%), UPyD 2 (7.4%), PSOE and other two lists 1 each (3.7%).

IU won a plurality (21.4%) in Torremocha de Jarama (pop. 892 in 2013), located to the NE of the region in the Guadalajara province border.

The rest of the municipalities are PSOE pluralities, being the most relevant the 'red belt' municipalities located S of Madrid (Getafe, Leganés, Parla). PSOE pluralities were low in those working class towns (between 20% and 30%) and both Podemos and IU had high performances. Same in the southern districts in the Madrid municipality (I'll post a district map, which I hope it'll be clearer). I should expand on metropolitan municipalities in a later post.


Thanks. I don't think so, since PP won a plurality in Alcorcón. The town is indeed to the SW of Madrid, but is contiguous to the capital and not in the SW fringe of the region. You can see the location of Alcorcón in Wikipedia:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcorc%C3%B3n

Likely that PSOE stronghold you are referring to is the rural municipality of Cenicientos, in the border with Toledo and Ávila provinces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenicientos

As for "potential university districts". I guess you are referring to places with a high student population, isn't it? I'll try to answer that later, since I have to search in neighbourhood results.

This map is a projection. If the result of the next elections to the Madrid Regional Assembly in May 2015 was replicating the the EP elections result, the 129 seats would be distributed as follows:

PP 48, PSOE 30, Podemos 18, UPyD 17, IU 16.

An hypothetical left-wing alliance falls short of a majority by only 1 seat. PP would need 17 additional votes, which is precisely the number of seats the projection gives to UPyD.

The EP elections official result in the region of Madrid was: PP 29.98%, PSOE 18.95%, Podemos 11,38%, UPyD 10.59%, IU 10.57%, Cs 4.81%, Vox 3.67%, PE 2%.

With a little variation in the result, the allocation of seats may vary substantially. UPyD, for instance, placed 4th ahead of IU by a tiny 0.02% margin, winning one seat more than the left-wing party in the projection. Ciudadanos (Cs) is only at 0.2% of reaching the 5% threshold needed to get seats in the Regional Assembly; by surpassing it, the party could win at least 6 or 7 seats.

The main curiosity of this map is that projects the result into the electoral districts planned in a proposal of electoral reform made by the PP regional government, which intended to introduce a mixed-member proportional electoral system. The proposal only considers 43 electorates (1/3 of the total) and its application wouldn't affect the allocation of seats in the Assembly, according to this projection. It is unlikely to be passed, given that opposition parties are against and the bill needs a vote of 2/3 of the Assembly. The proposed districts follow municipal-district borders and don't have a similar population, although they give an idea of how it is distributed across the region. PP might win 33 districts, PSOE 9 and Podemos 1 (Rivas-Vaciamadrid).

Results of the 2014 EP Elections in Madrid municipality by district and party:

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Result in Madrid municipality, according to figures provided by the delegation of the government and the city council:

PP 32.68%, PSOE 18.19%, Podemos 10.6%, IU 10.37%, UPyD 9.7%, Cs 4.74%, Vox 4.24%, PE 2.24%.

Podemos, IU and Equo (PE) will likely run in a "civic front" called Ganemos ("Let's win") in the 2015 municipal elections, while Podemos might run in its own in the regional elections, if this autumn's Podemos foundational convention approves a proposal made by the Pablo Iglesias' team. Note that "Ganemos" coalition has potential to get more votes than PSOE.

Madrid is divided in 21 municipal districts, each one subdivided in several "administrative neighbourhoods". Summary of best and worst districts by party:

PP: Best: Salamanca 46.8%, Chamartín 46%, Chamberí 42.7%. Worst: Puente de Vallecas 18.2%, Villa de Vallecas 19%, Vicálvaro 20.7%.

PSOE: Best: Puente de Vallecas 29.3%, Villaverde 27.1%, Usera 26,2%. Worst: Chamartín 10.5%, Salamanca 10.9%, Chamberí 12.1%.

Podemos: Best: Vicálvaro 16.1%, Centro 16%, Villa de Vallecas 14.9%. Worst: Chamartín 5.7%, Salamanca 5.8%, Chamberí 7.5%.

IU: Best: Puente de Vallecas 16.3%, Villa de Vallecas 16%, Centro 14.8%. Worst: Chamartín 5.4%, Salamanca 5.7%, Chamberí 7.1%.

UPyD: Best: Vicálvaro 12.7%, Villa de Vallecas 12.2%, Barajas 11.4%. Worst: Centro 7.8%, Salamanca 8.2%, Chamberí 8.2%.

Ciudadanos (Cs): Best: Chamartín 6.8%, Barajas 6.3%, Salamanca 6%. Worst: Puente de Vallecas 2.4%, Usera 2.9%, Villaverde 2.9%.

Vox: Best: Chamartín 8.3%, Salamanca 8.1%, Chamberí 7.3%. Worst: Puente de Vallecas 1.4%, Villaverde 1.6%, Vicálvaro 1.6%.

PE (Equo): Best: Centro 5.6%, Arganzuela 3.7%, Retiro 2.7%. Worst: Villaverde 1.2%, Usera, Puente de Vallecas and San Blas 1.5%.

It's dubious that I'll have the time to make a neighbourhood map. Anyway I have the data downloaded, so if someone curiosity on a particular neighbourhood in Madrid...



I'm afraid that you are not going to find "university district" patterns. I guess that's because students from other places living in student residences in Madrid don't vote there, unless they register as official residents. Also, students or university staff cannot afford high rent apartments in the affluent districts where are located many university campuses. It's possible that many of them live in Centro or in other cheaper districts or neighbourhoods, but I ignore if there's data avalaible on rented student apartments. For instance, Podemos won a plurality in the Embajadores (Lavapiés) neighbourhood belonging to the Centro district. Some universities (Carlos III, for instance) have campuses in working class municipalities such as Getafe.

The Complutense University is the most important higher educational institution in Madrid, measured in number of students. It's also a left-wing fiefdom and many members of the founding core of Podemos, including Pablo Iglesias, are teachers in that university. It has two campuses. The main campus is located the Ciudad Universitaria neighbourhood (Moncloa-Aravaca district) and includes several student residences.

The result in Ciudad Universitaria follows the general pattern of the Moncloa-Aravaca district.

PP 41.96%, PSOE 12.4%, UPyD 8.9%, Vox 7.3%, IU 7.2%, Podemos 6.8%, Cs 6.2%, PE 2.8%.

The second campus is located in Pozuelo de Alarcón (84k in 2013), a very affluent suburban municipality located west of Madrid and contiguous to the Moncloa-Aravaca district.

Result in the Pozuelo municipality: PP 41.8%, PSOE 11.3%, UPyD 10%, Vox 8.9%, Cs 7.8%, Podemos 6.3%, IU 4.8%, PE 1.8%.

It'd be illustrative searching in Google Maps the Ciudad Universitaria and the UCM Campus de Somosaguas in Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid (or the Carlos III campus in Getafe).

Thanks for the maps, Dani. And you won't find "university districts... I study in the UAM and nobody who comes from other provinces votes here in Madrid.

I'm still waiting for your email in response to my last one :)

I would be interested in the results of Lavapiés in Centro. My old stomping ground...

I guess you won't be surprised to know that your old stomping ground is a left-wing bastion. Lavapiés belongs to an administrative neighbourhood called Embajadores.

Embajadores (Centro): Podemos 20.14%, PP 19.5%, IU 16.73%, PSOE 16.51%, UPyD 7,15%, PE/Equo 6.24%, Cs 2.96%, Vox 1.72%. Valid votes cast: 14511.

It was the highest result for both Podemos and Equo in Madrid and the only one where the Pablo Iglesias list won a plurality in the EP elections. Besides, it was one of the strongest IU results with more votes than PSOE. Lavapiés is clearly leaning to the alternative/radical left.


I've been once or twice in Ciudad Universitaria, but never in the UAM campus. Well, I can tell you the results in the nearby El Goloso neighbourhood, in the Fuencarral-El Pardo district. Perhaps you know the reason why UPyD, Cs and Vox are so strong there.

PP 30.9%, UPyD 15.23%, PSOE 9,99%, Cs 8.98%, Vox 8.77%, Podemos 8.3%, IU 7.6%, PE 2.48%. Valid votes cast: 5725.

I was thinking that I replied your last e-mail. Anyway, I can send you another ;) Didn't I comment with you the results in La Castellana? You will adore them.

Castellana (Salamanca): PP 60.22%, Vox 11.1%, PSOE 6.56%, UPyD 5.82%, Cs 5.3%, Podemos 2.66%, IU 2.58%, PE 0.88%. Valid votes cast: 7145.

I'll check my email again, maybe I just didn't see it (I receive lots of junk mail so sometimes I don't see some of the "good" ones haahaha).

LoL at La Castellana. I go through there almost every day, but didn't know it was such an ugly place. TBH, the Socialist Youth usually goes there to distribute propaganda. Maybe we should search another place... Which is the friendlier one for us in the centre-centre/north of Madrid?

I don't know why the people in El Goloso are so insane, but I can tell you that not many students live there... And people who come to the UAM from other provinces skew conservative (at least in my class, they look rich).

Least shocking news I've heard in some time... I'd be amazed and disappointed if it weren't anything else.

Oh I briefly lived in Opañel in Carabanchel for one month. I imagine there the result was more conventional...

It was in the range of the Carabanchel district. PP plurality below the city average; PSOE, IU and Podemos slightly above average.

PP 30.67%; PSOE 21.59%; IU 12.55%, Podemos 11.28%, UPyD 8.65%, Cs 3.15%, Vox 2.63%, PE 1.74%. Valid votes cast: 10481.



La Castellana and Plaza de Colón are nodal transit points. I guess that's the reason why the Socialist Youth goes there to distribute leaflets. For obvious reasons, proselitism among residents in Castellana and Recoletos sounds like a waste of time. PP scored above 80% in La Castellana in the 2011 elections.

Recoletos (Salamanca): PP 57.15%, Vox 10.11%, PSOE 7.38%, Cs 6.45%, UPyD 5.85%, IU 3%, Podemos 2.94%, PE 1.33%. Valid votes cast: 6329.

The Vox Party came second in some Chamartín neighbourhoods, all of them obvious PP strongholds: El Viso (10.55%), Hispanoamérica (10.25%) and Nueva España (9.45%).

It's hard to find neighbourhoods north of the Madrid centre where PSOE scored above 20%. I'll make a summary of best neighbourhoods by district, including San Blas in the east periphery.

Centro (16.04% on average): No great differences between neighbourhoods. The best for PSOE were Embajadores (16.51%) and Justicia (16.4%).

Salamanca (10.95%): Fuente del Berro (15.16%).

Chamartín (10.53%): Prosperidad (13.77%).

Tetuán (17.2%): Almenara (21.2%), Berruguete (20.11%), Bellas Vistas (19.66%) and Valdeacederas (19.53%).

Chamberí (12.11%): Trafalgar (14.31%) and Arapiles (14.09%).

Fuencarral-El Pardo (16.25%): Barrio del Pilar (21.41%) and La Paz (18.58%).

Moncloa-Aravaca (13.4%): Valdezarza (18.33%).

Ciudad Lineal (17.68%): Pueblonuevo (21.81%) and Ventas (20.91%).

Hortaleza (17.48%): Pinar del Rey (21.04%) and Canillas (19.85%).

Barajas (16%): Aeropuerto (25.81%, plurality) and the Barajas old quarter (23.07%). Only 430 valid votes cast in the neighbourhood next to the airport.

San Blas-Canillejas (20.68%): Amposta (29.4%, plurality), Hellín (27.93%, plurality), Simancas (26.85%, plurality), Arcos (22.52%) and Rosas (21.52%).

Thank you for the information. And yes, we go to the Castellana because students who come from the north of Madrid to the UCM or UCIII usually pick the bus there :P

Results by district of the 2014 EP Elections in Barcelona:

()

Results in Barcelona municipality (2009-2014 change in brackets):

ERC 21.77% (+13.4%), CiU 20.86% (-0.85%), ICV-EUiA 12.62% (+4.65%), PSC-PSOE 12.22% (-20.49%), PP 11.96% (-8.72%), Ciutadans 6.98% (+6.57%), Podemos 4.73% (new), PACMA 1.27% (+0.72%), UPyD 1.1% (-0.07%).

2014 EP elections in Barcelona by neighbourhood:

()

Family income by neighbourhood in 2012 (city average=100):

()

2014 EP Elections: Leading party by municipality in Catalonia:


Credits: i-LabSo / El País.

2014 EP elections in Valencia (city):

()

Results (2009-2014 swing):

Partido Popular (PP) 28.27% (-25.54%)

Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) 16.77% (-17.77%)

Esquerra Unida País Valencià – L’Esquerra Plural (EUPV-IP) 11.18% (+7.73%)

Unión, Progreso y Democracia (UPyD) 9.54% (+6,27%)

Primavera Europea - Coalició Compromís (PE) 8.96%*

Podemos / Podem 8.56% (new)

Ciudadanos (Cs) 3.6% (+3.42%)**

Partido Vox (VOX) 3.06% (new)

Partido Antitaurino Contra el Maltrato Animal (PACMA) 1.59% (+1.35%)

* 2009: BLOC (CEU) 0.48%, ERPV-EV (EDP-V) 0.48%

** 2009: Libertas-Ciudadanos de Europa 0.18%

In the 2014 elections, PP won pluralities in 17 districts and PSOE in 2 (Pobles de l'Oest and Benicalap). PP won all districts in 2009 with >60% majorities in several central districts (Mestalla, l'Eixample, Extramurs or Ciutat Vella). The most conservative district is Pla del Real, where PP got 68.05% in 2009 and 41.41% in 2014 (Vox 8.13%, Cs 6.84%). PSOE's best result was in Pobles del Oest with 23.46%, getting >20% in a handful of districts (Benicalap, Rascanya, Olivereta, Jesús). IU (EUPV) did well in Poblats Maritims (the port district) getting 13.53%, as well in other working class districts located to the N (Algirós, Benimaclet, Rascanya) and the S (Jesús). Compromís is stronger in the Valencia's old quarter (it came second in Ciutat Vella, getting 11.31%) and in the rururban peripheral districts located N and S. As it happened in Madrid, Ciudadanos and Vox performed stronger results in those districts which traditionally lean to PP, while IU and Podemos performed better in districts where PSOE was usually stronger. There's not a clear socioeconomic pattern in the UPyD vote, neither in Madrid nor in Valencia.

A couple of city maps to finish the EP elections series. PP governs Seville after winning a majority in the 2011 municipal elections, whereas PSOE governs Zaragoza in minority with the outside support of IU and the left-wing regionalist Aragonese Union (CHA). Juan Ignacio Zoido (PP) will have an uphill battle to retain the mayoralty in Seville. The mayor of Zaragoza Juan Alberto Belloch (PSOE) is not going to seek reelection in 2015.

Municipality of Seville by district:

()

PSOE 29.97% (-15.58%), PP 27,8% (-13.17%), Podemos 9.75% (new), IU 9.62% (+5.48%), UPyD 7.99% (+3.34%), Cs 2.27% (+2.17%), Vox 1.96% (new), PE (EQUO) 1.55% (+1.05%), Andalusian Party (PA) 1.41% (+0.63%), PACMA 1.08% (+0.78%).

Municipality of Zaragoza (Saragossa) by district:

()

PP 24.42% (-16.24%), PSOE 20.62% (-21.91%), Podemos 10.96% (new), IU 10.55% (+6.35%), UPyD 9.99% (+5.7%), PE (CHA-EQUO) 4.99% (+1.94%), Cs 3.64% (+3.48%), Vox 3.23% (new), Eb 2.32% (new)*, PACMA 1.53% (+1.26%), Partido X 1.41% (new).

_{Escaños en Blanco (roughly, "empty seats" or "none of the above") is a party founded in Barcelona that seeks recognition of protest vote in the form of empty seats. Eb got 0.74% nationwide}

Is there seriously no Spain general discussion section or 2015 thread? I'm stupid, help me.

There is a Spain GD, check the stickied GD thread on the IP board.

Maybe someone should start a thread on the May 2015 regional and local elections next month, immediately followed by another on the November 2015 general elections. Also, there's the possibility of elections in Catalonia next year.