Basque, Catalonian and Galician parliamentary election, 2012

[Niemeyerite]

So, after PP-Euskadi leader, Antpnio Basagoiti, decided that they would not support Patxi Lopez government anymore, Patxi has decided it's time for a new election to take place. He's the first non-nationalist "lehendakari", after 30 years of PNV. Patxi Lopez (PSE-EE/PSOE) won the "lehendakaritza" after finishing 2nd in 2009 elections, with the support of PP and UPyD in the Parliament. In 2009, political parties close to ETA were ilegalized, with only Aralar representing the "abertzale" (nationalist) left. Eusko Alkartasuna, now a part of Bildu, was, by the time, the centre to centre-left party of the nationalist forces.
Now, with the legalization of Bildu, it seems that the election will be PNV vs. Bildu, with PSE a distant 3rd and PP a distant 4th, and, ironically, IU (Esker Anitza in Euskadi) and UPyD are fighting to keep their seats in the Basque parliament, while their percentages are growing fast in the rest of Spain.
Aralar has decided to support Laura Mintegi, Bildu's candidate, while Ezker Batua (formerly supported by IU) will try to keep their seat, too (but it's highly unlikely).

Polls indicate that PNV will win 23 to 25 seats, Bildu 20-23, PSE 14-17, PP 11-13, IU 0-3, UPyD 0-1.

[Niemeyerite]

I think the most likely coalition is PNV/PSE.

[Niemeyerite]

El Mundo poll:

PNV 24-25 (33,7)
EHB 21-22 (27,3)
PSOE 17 (21,4)
PP 12 (12,8)
IU 0 (2,3)
UPyD 0 (1,1)

La Razón:

PNV: 31.2% (22-25)
EHB: 26.5% (20-22)
PSE: 19.0% (14-16)
PP: 14.1% (11-13)
IU: 3.5% (2)
UPyD: 3.1% (1)

Two biased, conservative polls if you ask me.

[Niemeyerite]

Important to note that La Voz de Galicia is still alive because of Feijoo's subventions.

[Niemeyerite]

Hash, I disagree. The poll is reeeally inaccurate, IMHO.

ERC will grow a lot, probably becoming the 2nd party if the PSC crisis doesn't stop before December.

PSC is down a bit, probably will ink even further, because Pere Navarro isn't that known and socialists prefer another candidate (polls say).

PP is obviously down, don't know if only a bit or a lot. I think a lot.

CiU should be way down, since people don't like Mas and his cuts on Health and Education have been really radical. But since he now is the independentist voice, and everything bad that happens in Catalunya is because of Spain, he may still get 60 deputies.

About SI, I'd say they'd get more votes than in 2010, but I think people will vote ERC, instead.

Ciutadans will likely get 1 or 2 more seats in the Parliament, as some ex-voters of PSC and PP may vote for them.

ICV is probably getting better results than in 2010. IU has gone from 7 to 14% on the national level. ICV may get 3-4 more congressmen (they have 10 now).

My prediction: CiU wins with more than 60 deputies, PSC sinks even further (wouldn't be the case with Angel Ros, the mayor of Lleida), ERC almost catches PSC, ICV gets more votes than PP, Ciutadans gets 5 seats and SI won't be in the next Parliament (specially if CUP decides to take part in this election). PxC won't enter the Parliament, I hope.

[Niemeyerite]

Regionalist-to-nationalist conservatives in Galicia vote PP, specially in Lugo and Ourense. Politicians like Jose Manuel Baltar represent the regionalist right really well, and, now, they're all member of the PP. But it may not be this way in 3-4 years. Now, there's a corrupt banker, Mario Conde, running as a far-right candidate, and the wife of Baltar is supporting him. He may get some conservative rural votes, thus hurting the PP in Lugo and Ourense.

BNG splitted in three parts: BNG (whose candidate will be Francisco Jorquera, the leader of the party in the national Congress), ANOVA (leaded by Beiras, the former leader of the BNG in Coruña) and CxG (the conservative section of the BNG, plus some small regionalist parties, from the right to socialdemocracy).

IU, a party which always gets poor results in Galicia, asked for a coalition ANOVA-IU ("the Galician Sryza" they call it), and Beiras accepted. CxG, whose base is mainly rural and conservative, could join the coalition, too (and I really don't know why).

BNG, of course, is doing worse than in 2009. In fact, they are probably behind the "Galician Sryza" now, but I'm sure they'll recover and get at least the 12 seats they got in 2009. Jorquera is a good candidate (better, by far, than Anxo Quintana, candidate in 2005 and 2009) and it may get some votes from otherwise socialist voters.

[Niemeyerite]

The "right" in Spain is dying. And the centre-right is alive because UPyD is growing. But, by far, the most fasicst newspaper is "La Gaceta" (Intereconomía). La Razçon is a joke newspaper who stands by Rajoy no matter what. They are clowns, not even the sane conservative voter considers them a serious newspaper. ABC is the newspaper of old, conservative people. El Mundo is the only one which I'd consider "OK", and they're the guys who still say 11-M was caused by ETA and not Al-Qaida.

My father, the typical centre-left voter who doesn't like communists and hates PP, reads El País, and sometimes La Vanguardia. La Vanguardia is a good newspaper, related to CiU but not that flawed. And they've released some good polls before. I trust this poll, but probably with ERC stronger and PP and CiU lower. But anything can happen until December.

And Montserrat Tura will challenge Pere Navarro for the nomination, This means:

1) If Tura, the "regionalist" option, wins, PSC may get more than 25 seats. She was the only popular politician from the "Tripartito", but lost to Jordi Hereu in last year primaries for Barcelona local elections.

2) If Navarro, the "federalist", wins by less than 10 points... Expect PSC to have devastating results.

3) If Navarro wins confortably, he may get from 20 to 25 seats... But could still get less than 20 seats.

And the best option is... Both of them decide to stop this nonsense and urge Lleida mayor, Angel Ros, to run. We could be talking about 30 seats with him as our candidate. But he may be too nationalist for PSC taste in the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona.

[Niemeyerite]

As Dani said, Navarro has won the nomination 73-23%. He was expected to win, but this was a huge victory, probably because some catalanists, like Angel Ros, decided to support Navarro again, as they did last year. Tura has supported him, and may be already thinking about running in 4 years, in an open primary. Angel Ros is open to being the leader of the PSC in the province of Lleida. This will help Navarro, certainly.
So, if yesterday I predicted 20-25 seats for the PSC, I go for the 25-30 option now, as this was a great Sunday for Navarro, and he will be helped by some nationalist socialists. But, anything could happen, Navarro is as boring as Montilla and ICV may still steal some socialist voters, as they candidate is popular among lefties, nationalists, federalists, 15-M crowd... Joan Herrera is a good candidate, PSC'd better make a good campaign, because they can continue losing votes.

[Niemeyerite]

I trust this poll. As I've always thought, ERC is very strong, PSC and PP very weak. I think PSC will recover a bit now.

About the article, I read that this afternoon, too. And I dind't know who she was, but after reading what the article said about her, I googled "Rocio Martinez-Sampere" and read the Catalonian Wikipedia entry about her haha... She seemed dumb in the photo ElPais chose for her, but she's cute and young. Expect her to become something important in the future

[Niemeyerite]

CIS

Galicia:

PP 38 seats (=)
PSdeG 23-24 (-1/-2)
BNG 12-13 (-2/-3)
EU-ANOVA 1 (+1)

Euskadi:

PNV 27
EH-BILDU 21-22
PSE-EE 14
PP 9-10
Esker Anitza (IU) 3

[Niemeyerite]

My results:

IUANOVA: 63.7%
BNG 49.6%
CxG 45%
PSOE 40.8%
UPYD 29%
PP -40%

Unsurprising now that I've realized I'm not the typical PSOE voter...
But I still support Pachi Vázquez!!!

Oh, and I'll go to Vitoria this Sunday to the Patxi macro-meeting, then will do some campaign for him. It's useless, we will not even get 17 seats...

[Niemeyerite]

My results:

Equo-Berdeak: 67.9%
PSE-EE (!):       50.8%
Ezker Anitza:   49.2%
Bildu:               35%
UPyD:              34.6%
PNV:                3.8%
PP:                  -20.4%

About right. I'm surprised I'm such an environmentalist, but I'm glad to see PSE fits me better than IU this time The PP numbers should be around -40. Could it be because Basagoiti is more moderate than the national PP? Or maybe because I'm strongly pro-EU?


The alternative result is:

Equo:   69%
PSE:     61.7%
IU:       51.7%
UPyD:  40%
Bildu:   35%
PNV:    10%
PP:     -20%

[Niemeyerite]

I hope those numbers were true for PSE..

[Niemeyerite]

The question was about sick prisoners, IIRC. That's what my option was "disagree". But, obviously, I believe the ones with terminal illness should be released from prison. Bolinaga shouldn't (I don't think he's terminal).

And the new LaVanguardia poll:

CIU 68-69
PSC 20-21
PP 17-18
ERC 13
ICV 10-11
Ciutadans 3
SI 0-2
PxC 0-2

Flawed, if you want my opinion. CiU gets the absolute majority here.

[Niemeyerite]

I'm sure López, the person, is not disliked in Euskadi. The problem is that he was elected lehendakari after losing an election only because PP's Basagoiti thought he was marginally better than Ibarretxe...

I was in Vitoria yesterday, to campaign for Lopez and attend the meeting with Rubalcaba (I took a photo with both of them, will show it later), and the meeting wasn't as full as I expected. Actually, there were some -not many- empty chairs. 4 years ago his meetings were fuuuull of people. I guess that means polls are right or overesimating Patxi

BTW, welcome back, Gren. But PNV is still a conservative party. If you don't think so, wait and see Urkullu govenrment.

[Niemeyerite]

Well, Lula didn't have academic formation (Patxi left the University) and he was a popular President. I don't think that's a reason not to like somebody.
He can't speak Basque, as many other Basques (including Ibarretxe!) but he's learning it. Yesterday, half of his speech was in Basque

There are some interesting graphics which show Euskadi has managed to improve its economy since 2009 (while the rest of the Autonomic Communities were cutting and cutting the spending and going down the flames: Valencia, Canarias, Catalunya, Andalucia, Castilla-La Mancha and now probably Aragon):

Commerce:

Unemployment:

Growth:

Others:

[Niemeyerite]

Bueno, me parece correcto discutir en castellano aquí, ya que hay muchos miembros del foro que quieren aprender castellano y ya somos tres los españoles.

Los datos sobre el empleo me parece que son en cifras absolutas y no en porcentajes. Y la subida del 2% del paro ha sido muuuuchíiiisimo menor que en el resto del Estado, y ya sé que en Euskadi la construcción tenía menor peso y que el concierto ha favorecido la menor incidencia de la crisis... Pero aún así, en el resto del Estado se ha duplicado (más que eso). Y la política de estimular el crecimiento de Patxi digo yo que tiene algo que ver, mientras que la ideología económica del PNV en realidad no difiere mucho de la del PP nacional. Creo que si hubiera seguido gobernando Ibarretxe la crisis hubiera sido peor para Euskadi, sinceramente.
Patxi ha demostrado que vale más la pena inyectar dinamismo a la economía que recortarla.

El concierto económico, Hash, ha permitido a Euskadi no tener que dar su recaudación al gobierno para que este lo redistribuyera, básicamente. Y cuando en realidad Euskadi y Navarra deberían dar una cuota al Estado, no lo están haciendo en la medida que se exige, y pueden invertir ese dinero en su economía.

Finalmente, lo que más aprecio de Patxi es que no se ande con ambigüedades. El PSE-EE es un partido que defiende la Autonomía dentro de España, y en eso está. No hace como el PSC que cada día dice una cosa y a la vez no dice nada (aunque parecen haberse asentado en la idea de Estado Federal). Patxi es un tío honesto, un buen tío, y, para mí, un buen lehendakari.

Me hace gracia que le quites todo el mérito al gobierno de Euskadi sobre la lucha contra la crisis y se lo des a las diputaciones... Pero bueno, cada uno que crea lo que quiere. ¿La de Araba no la ostentaba el PP?

Hash, tu castellano es muy bueno. Lo único que has puesto medio mal es el paréntesis explicativo del final jjaja...

[Niemeyerite]

Dani, yo estoy a favor del federalismo asimétrico y del derecho a la autodeterminación. Pero hablo como individuo, mientras que un partido debería hablar como tal, y no como conjunto de individuos. La Tura quiere una nación dentro del Estado, el Maragall quiere ser independiente, el Navarro no sabía lo que quería hasta que decidió que lo que más "molaba" era el federalismo... Lo que critico del PSC es eso, su ambigüedad y cambios de discurso. Patxi, sin embargo, siempre se ha mantenido en la misma línea de pensamiento (y eso es lo que he dicho que aprecio de él).

Gren, claro que el PNV ha votado en contra de todos los recortes. Y el PP también cuando gobernaba Zapatero, y ahora el PSOE cuando gobierna Rajoy. Porque es muy fácil decir que son malos para la economía ("la subida del IVA es el sablazo del mal gobernante a la economía" dijo Rajoy en 2010). Pero la verdad es que el elector del PNV de toda la vida no difiere mucho del elector del PP de toda la vida en cuanto a forma de ver la economía. Y ahora Urkullu se presenta como un moderado, centrista, que prefiere la inversión al recorte. Exactamente como Rajoy en 2011. Obviamente, también creo que el PP es bastante más radical, pero vamos, que el PNV no es ni mucho menos centrista o centroizquierdista. Yo creo que es más probable que ahoguen la economía vasca a que la incentiven, qué quieres que te diga...

Dicho esto, me encanta tener esta clase de debate. Y si echáis a Patxi, que lo haréis, no pasa nada, hombre. Nosotros lo presentamos en 2015 al Gobierno central si hace falta. Que ya te digo yo que con uno como él si empezamos a subir en las encuestas Es más, creo que algún peneuvista lo votaría, como hicieron con ZP en 2008.

Ari ari ari Patxi Presidente de España.

[Niemeyerite]

Yo sinceramente pienso que Mas no quiere una Catalunya independiente porque sabe que es impracticable. Pero si se pone en ese extremo gana votos y el término medio se sitúa en una Catalunya federal, que es lo que yo creo que es la solución. La cosa es que el gobierno central es tan intransigente y tan centralista que cada día que habla un ministro hay medio millón más de independentistas. Mas y Rajoy están jugando con fuego, y yo creo que ambos se acabarán quemando.

Sobre que Catalunya sea miembro independiente de la UE, es imposible:
1) No se va a independizar de España
2) Para ser miembro tiene que ser un Estado reconocido por todos los Estados Miembro de la UE, y está claro que España no lo va a reconocer como independiente.

Respecto a lo de hablar castellano... teniendo en cuenta que aquí se habla mucho alemán también, e incluso a veces francés, no veo el problema.

[Niemeyerite]

I haven't heard about Duran i Lleida for weeks... Do you think he feels comfortable with Mas independentist approach? Because I don't think he is.

[Niemeyerite]

Prediction time! I'm optimistic today:

Euskadi

PNV  25
Bildu 20
PSE  17
PP    10
EA    2
UPD 1

Galicia

PP       36
PSdeG 23
BNG    11
AGE     4-5 (leaning 5)
UPyD   0-1 (leaning 0, but I think they have realistic chances in Pontevedra).

[Niemeyerite]

Jooder, otro castellano-parlante por aquí En un foro español no encuentras ni la mitad que hablen inglés jaja

Por cierto, tengo parientes que viven en Sant Pere de Ribes... El marido (catalán de nacimiento) va a votar CiU, me parece. Su mujer, mi prima Fina (zaragozana), probablemente votará a ICV (pero no descarto PSC o CiU: votó a los Pirates en 2011). Su hijo Pere va a votar ICV lo más seguro. Da el perfil y habla bien de Herrera.

Nadie más hace sus predicciones?

por cierto lo del escaño por Pontevedra lo digo porque me ha contado un amigo de Vigo, que votará a Beiras, que están haciendo una buena campaña los de UPyD (sé que es una razón tonta, pero bueno). Y como dieron la sorpresa en muchos parlamentos regionales el año pasado, creo que es posible...

[Niemeyerite]

Turn out down both in Galicia (specially in Ourense) and Euskadi (specially in Guipuzkoa). It's surprising in Euskadi, considering that in 2009 the pro-ETA abertzales didn't have an option (only Aralar for the most moderate ones). And this could be good news, as Ourense is the most conservative province and Guipuzkoa the province where Bildu always wins.

[Niemeyerite]

In Galicia, 42% have voted, down 7 points from 2009. It's always good news for the right in Spain, but Feijoo managed to win with the biggest turn-out ever in 2009. So, I'm not sure what it means this time.

[Niemeyerite]

Down only 1 point in Euskadi now, And up in Guipuzkoa

In Galicia, down 8.7% in Ourense, 7.1 in Lugo, 7 in Pontevedra and 6.1 in Coruña. Lugo and Ourense are the most conservative.