Spanish elections and politics

[jeron]

The count is going fast. At 53.1%

PSOE 37.6% (50 seats), PP 25.03% (32), Podemos 14.96% (15), C's 8.61% ( 8 ), IU 6.97% (4), UPyD 1.87%, PA 1.63%, PACMA 0.8%, Vox 0.41%

After about 70% of the vote counted, PSOE is still at 50 seats. So, it seems  the exit poll has underestimated PSOE a bit (and overestimated Podemos)

[jeron]

So PSOE minority government then right? It seems like the coalition partnerns until now, IU, will not get enough seats to muster a majority with the PSOE which will make it somewhat harder for the latter to govern. At least it is one majority possibility less than they probably preferred; as the results are now they will have to get some kind of accept for legislative proposals by PP, Podemos or C's

A new coalition between PSOE and IU wasn't very likely anyway considering the events in the last couple of months. The only possibilty for a majority government seems to be a PSOE-Ciudadanos coalition.

[jeron]

Podemos second in command Ïñigo Errejón admitted that the results are bad for UP.

Starting to look like when all the dust settles the result will be almost identical to last winter except that PP gained 10 or so seats from Cs...Spain remains ungovernable

I am not sure I agree.  PP's gains in terms of vote count and seats gives it more political chips to go for a PP government with support from C and PSOE from the outside.  Question now is is that with or without Rajoy who can legitimately claim that he can and should continue.

The pressure to reach a "stable" agreement will be stronger. The bad thing is that results vindicate Rajoy and likely he will persist on his idea of a Grand Coalition led by himself. 

PSOE and C will never accept a Rajoy led government. So, if Rajoy persists, Spain will indeed remain ungovernable.

[jeron]

I think that in judicial terms, that's known as called leading the witness.

In any case, the bias of this poll is according to El País editorial line. The paper is advocating for PSOE abstention and criticizing Pedro Sánchez, claiming that his resistance is irresponsible and questioning his capacity to lead the party. Some people in PSOE is waiting for the right time to draw the sword against Sánchez. Try to guess with whom is going to side PRISA (the editor of El País). Mariano Rajoy must be very pleased.

Last time i read El Pais, it wasn't as clear about this as you write here. Yes they think that PSOE should possibly abstain, but they also wrote that some of the policies proposed by PP are unacceptable for PSOE.

[jeron]

Keep in mind everyone that it's far from clear whether the no confidence vote will actually be successful. There are 2 possible ways for the no confidence vote to be successful (176/350 MPs are needed, an overall majority):

PSOE+Cs+Podemos
PSOE+Podemos+ERC+PDECat+PNV

Also, a no confidence vote just to call a snap election is vastly different from one where PSOE would actually try to govern for a while. It seems PSOE prefers the latter as long as they don't have to deal with the secessionists (though in a break from what PSOE policy used to be, Sánchez is open to that option!). While Cs obviously prefers a snap election.

 

Cs won’t support the no confidence vote so it will all depend on PNV (again)