Spanish elections and politics II: Catalan elections on February 14, 2021

[Walmart_shopper]

It's happening! "Popular leftwing politician forms new party"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/25/spanish-elections-popular-leftwing-politician-forms-new-party-inigo-errejon

One of the Spanish left’s most popular politicians has announced the creation of a splinter party that will run in the 10 November parliamentary elections, adding further uncertainty to the country’s fourth national ballot in four years (...)

Íñigo Errejón, a co-founder of Podemos, which he left in January after disagreements with its leader, Pablo Iglesias, said he was launching the party, Más País (More Country), because he wanted to help form a government and encourage disillusioned leftwing voters to turn up at the polling stations.

“I understand the widespread anger of the Spanish people with the current leaders and with the political stalemate,” he said in front of a crowd cheering “president”.  

The Más País ticket in Madrid will be headed by Errejón, who allegedly will be flanked by high profile women such as former deputy mayor Marta Higueras or former environment commissioner Inés Sabanés (as I said before, she's from Equo and is the Madrid Central craftswoman). It is still unknown in which provinces will compete Más País. Anyway there is a new GAD3 poll incorporating the new party released today by the conservative ABC newspaper

PSOE 27.2% (121 seats)
PP 21.4% (97)
UP 12.4% (34)
Cs 11.3% (32)
Vox 9.6% (21)
Más País 5.2% (9)
ERC 3.9% (15)
JxCAT 2% (7)
EAJ-PNV 1.6% (6)
EH Bildu 1% (4)
NA+ 0.5% (2)
CC 0.4% (1)
PRC 0.2% (1)

The main conclusion may well be that Sánchez wanted a new election to strengthen his position and will get a more complex parliament in return. Good luck, Pedro

Mostly because "Más España" would have very obvious connotations and thus is unreasonable for a party in the left

The PSOE and the PCE are the traditional parties of the Spanish Left. The "E" means "Español" and "España", respectively. PP, Cs and Vox don't have the letter "E". "Más País" sounds much better than "Más España". Anyway in case if you visit the new party's website, you will notice internet domain is ".es" (Podemos is ".org") and they use the word "España"

Meanwhile PP will try to convince Cs to go into a joint list called "España Suma". Rivera boys are not enthusiastic with the idea, but their polling numbers are rather bad. I believe deadline for coalitions is next Sunday.

Either Sanchez is either the biggest genius ever or he is really, really bad at politics. I guess we'll find out soon. He is trying to be a kind of Spanish Macron, which is interesting because everyone thougjt Macron was bad at politics but now it seems like he's really quite good at them. For what it's worth I think Sanchez is more like May than Macron, which is to say doomed.

[Walmart_shopper]

Spain, CIS poll:

PSOE-S&D: 32% (+3)
PP-EPP: 18% (+1)
UP-LEFT: 15% (+1)
Cs-RE: 11% (-4)
VOX-ECR: 8% (-2)
ERC-G/EFA: 4%
MP-LEFT|G/EFA: 3% (+2)
JxCat-NI: 2%
PNV-RE: 2%
...

+/- vs. April election

Fieldwork: 21/09-13/10/2019
Sample size: 17,650
europeelects.eu/spain

If this happens then I was wrong and Sanchez is a genius. Also, I might move to Spain. On the other hand, it's one poll.

[Walmart_shopper]

CIS polls are a meme at this point and should be discarded.

I mean, I haven't requested a visa quite yet.

[Walmart_shopper]

So, uh, you guys have any predictions?

A fifth election. Because porque no?

[Walmart_shopper]

Turnout figures at 14:00h:

Nov 2019 - 37.9% (-3.6)
Apr 2019 - 41.5%
2016 - 36.9%
2015 - 37.0%
2011 - 37.9%

Could be a lot worse, honestly. Probably a sign that nothing too groundbreaking will happen. The right would want turnout in the low 30s to pull off a shocker, I would imagine.

[Walmart_shopper]

Turnout figures at 14:00h:

Nov 2019 - 37.9% (-3.6)
Apr 2019 - 41.5%
2016 - 36.9%
2015 - 37.0%
2011 - 37.9%

Could be a lot worse, honestly. Probably a sign that nothing too groundbreaking will happen. The right would want turnout in the low 30s to pull off a shocker, I would imagine.

We'll have to wait until 18:00h to know the real trend. In 2016, by that time only 51% had cast a ballot and that election ended up being quite good for the right.

Do you have the 6pm numbers for the last four elections?

[Walmart_shopper]

Turnout at 6pm at 56.79%. A five point drop from April. Not bad, frankly, given the voter apathy that could be expected.

[Walmart_shopper]

The localized 6pm turnout reports paint a pretty murky picture.

Catalonia: 59.8% (down 4.4%)
Barcelona: 60.4% (down 4.4%)
Extremadura: 54.4% (down 5.9%)
Andalucia: 54.9% (down 2.3%)
Seville: 57.6% (down 1.5%)
Granada 55.3% (down 3.8%)
Castilla La Mancha: 57.5% (down 4.9%)
Valencia Community: 60% (down 1.6%)
Valencia: 61.3% (down 0.3%)
Murcia region: 57.9% (down 3.9%)
Castilla y Leon: 56.7% (down 5.2%)
Melilla: 39% (down 5.4%)
Alcocorn (PSOE suburb of Madrid): 63.9% (down 2.9%)
Torrejon de Ardoz (PP suburb of Madrid): 60.9% (down 4%)
Salamanca (PP stronghold of Madrid): 63% (down 2.8%)
Fuenlabrada (PSOE Madrid suburb): 61.3% (down 4%)

Catalonia is perhaps a surprise, and a problem for the left.  But a lot of right wing strongholds are simply not showing up at the same rates at left wing strongholds (except for Extremadura, I guess).

[Walmart_shopper]

https://twitter.com/electo_mania/status/1193580267912540162

Only Álava (Basque Country) and Jaén (Andaluzia), have increased turnout rates compared with April.

The rest has lower turnout that ranges from 0% and -7%.

In terms of communities, 8 have turnout decreases above 5%:

Balears
Canarias
Melilla City
Extremadura
Galicia
Castilla y León
Principado de Asturias
Ceuta City

3 communities have turnout decreases below 3%:

Basque Country
Andaluzia
Valencia

While this doesn't quite portend a big win for the left, it appears that the idea that a fourth election would deter left wing voters from turning out has simply proven false.  There is a generalized pattern of right wing strongholds showing up at considerably lower rates versus April compared with left wing provinces.  It is also worth noting that some of the places where Vox was strongest are especially weak so far today.  Madrid's turnout is not terrible, though, but there it is hardest to figure out what's happening because there is so much fluidity between Vox, PP and, and Cs.  PP could be cannibalizing the large right wing vote in Madrid, or Vox could be surging.  It's hard to know.

[Walmart_shopper]

Repost: largest bloc by province

I saw the long, gray blob on the left edge of the map and was confused about which bloc was strongest.

Sorry, Portugal.  I like really do like you more.

[Walmart_shopper]

https://twitter.com/electo_mania/status/1193604448741924871

Surreal. The fifth election in April is going to be interesting.

[Walmart_shopper]

Looks like Right wing bloc narrowly beats out Left wing bloc

Without 176 seats the right wing bloc isn't "beating" anyone. But you're also right, and Sanchez will now be pm over a divided government in which his bloc isn't even the largest.

[Walmart_shopper]

Sánchez and Iglesias have a "pre-agreement" to form a coalition government. *Insert clown emoji here*

https://elpais.com/politica/2019/11/12/actualidad/1573561378_089352.html

Question is, do they have the votes?

Haha. They should both be resigning from politics, not leading the country.

[Walmart_shopper]

How likely is the ERC to abstain?

[Walmart_shopper]

Is Valencia basically Spain's Ohio?

[Walmart_shopper]

Well this is what I get for speaking too early. We just got big news regarding government negotiations.

Apparently during negotiations PSOE has leaked to ERC the contents of the reports Spanish government prosecutors will make regarding the jail situation of former ERC leader Oriol Junqueras.

ERC apparently has agreed with those prosecutor arguments and has agreed with them, and will abstain in the government confidence vote.

It is expected that the government confidence votes will take place during the first week of January 2020.

https://cadenaser.com/ser/2019/12/29/politica/1577638677_168479.html

In any case, you can see this as Sánchez meddling into the job of prosecutors and further neutering separation of powers (not exactly strong in Spain). Plus depending on how conspiratorial you are, you could see this as some sort of big betrayal to the unity of Spain.

Either way, it seems a government will be formed soon

A new election definitely worked for Sanchez, but not at all in the way he expected.