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

[Former President tack50]

Will the Senate be up for election in a snap election?  I can see PSOE doing well in the Senate election at least even if PP+C+VOX majority seems likely in the Lower House.

In theory not necesarily, Sanchez could legally call an election only for Congress.

In practice, it would certainly be for both, there is no reason to separate them.

And yes I also could see PSOE doing well in the Senate. Worth noting that article 155 (direct rule) is paseed by the Senate and not Congress so theoretically PSOE coule block it if PP/Cs/Vox attempt to pass it

 So no plans to consolidate the vote with European elections in May?

It's unclear, another possible date is the 26th of May alongside the EU (and local) elections.

However most of the PSOE leadership don't want this in order not to contaminate their local campaigns with national issues

Edit: Blatantly hijacking this post in the first page several months later to add a link to the previous thread: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=205125.0

[Former President tack50]

https://elpais.com/politica/2019/02/15/actualidad/1550216540_890788.html

Pedri Sanchez has finally called the election for the 28th of April

[Former President tack50]

Worth noting that today 3 "new" parties announced their intention to run alone and not in coalitions:

-New Canaries (NCa). A centre-left Canarian nationalist party. Strong in the eastern province of Las Palmas but weak in the western province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. They contested the 2016 election alongside PSOE and got 1 senator and 1 MP. While that Senator is pretty much gone, they should be able to hold their MP, but it will be close.

-Regionalist Party of Cantabria (PRC): A centrist, progressive and somewhat populist Cantabria regionalist party, led by Premier Miguel Ángel Revilla. They rarely contest national elections but apparently this time they will. They should be able to easily get 1 seat, but nothing else.

-Actúa: : An IU splinter mostly; led by former IU leader Gaspar Llamazares and former judge Baltasar Garzón. Unlike the other 2, this one seems unlikely to get any seats but we shall see.

All 3 are very good parties in my (biased) opinion, but we shall see.

[Former President tack50]

Worth noting that today 3 "new" parties announced their intention to run alone and not in coalitions:

Sorry, but I don't think that New Canaries or the Cantabria regionalists have many chances of winning seats. These parties perform much better in regional elections.

PRC ran unsuccessfully in the 2011 general elections, getting 12.5% (around 44k votes). That time the Cantabria Regionalist Party came close, but this time there is a lot of competence. PP, PSOE, Cs, Podemos and Vox will be running too and the province only has 5 seats.

The results of NC in Las Palmas province, either running in its own or in a joint list with the Canary Coalition (CC), have been rather poor in previous elections. NC (in coalition with CCN) got 7.5% in 2008 and no seats, while the NC-CC-PNC joint list got 11.3% in 2011 and 1 seat. Unless NC runs with CC again, the chances are slim because regionalist vote will be splitted.

I concur the electoral chances of Actúa are virtually zero. The party of Gaspar Llamazares and Baltasar Garzón was rejected by Más Madrid at regional level. The platform led by Íñigo Errejón seeks to ally with Podemos, IU and Equo. Llamazares has been always hostile to Podemos and he is a figure of the past, with little electoral appeal outside his Asturias home turf.

I'm a lot more optimistic about those 2.

Because of how D'Hondt works, PRC would need to come in 5th at worst, and get more than half of what the 1st place finisher gets. That's probably somewhere around 13-15% (depending on how much you think PP will fall), which doesn't seem unreachable to me. Revilla is popular and he has a legit shot. His seat would probably come off Podemos' seat. (1-1-1-1-1 split)

Similarly, NC managed to get 7% in 2008; back when they were a lot less popular (at the time they didn't even have regional representation, falling below the threshold in the 2007 regionals!).

I could see NC getting 10% and 1 seat. Pedro Quevedo has also been a high profile MP for the most part. CC is small enough to ignore; they got 3% and I imagine at least a handful of those might move to NC if they have a chance (while CC doesn't).

[Former President tack50]

There was another poll today which seems to be a lot more reasonable than the GESOP one

GAD3 for La Vanguardia



There will probably be a third one published, this time by Sociométrica-El Español

[Former President tack50]

  So what is the vote % crossover point for a party running throughout the country like Vox to win a seat share approximate to its vote share. Looks like right now its 8.8% in the last poll gets it about 4.5 % of the seats. This wastage alone might be enough to deny the PP, C, and Vox a majority.

Well, no one really knows, but the more the better. (Try to think of Spain's seat to vote ratio as exponential instead of linear)

Keep in mind that the vote-seats ratio is not only dependant on the party's results, but also in the results of everyone else.

A good example is that PSOE got 175 seats (exactly half) in 1989 with only 39.6% of the popular vote.

Meanwhile in 2008 PSOE got only 169 seats with 43.7% of the vote.

The reason for this is that in 1989 the opposition was quite divided, with the 2nd largest party being PP with 25.8% of the vote. Meanwhile in 2008 the opposition was also unified with PP getting 39.9% of the vote.

[Former President tack50]

I was meaning to ask, what are the best pollsters in Spain? What pollsters should I turn a blind eye to?

Best pollsters (or at least the most accurate thus far) seems to have been GAD3, which has also been consistently good.

Worst pollster by far is CIS. It barely counts as a poll at this point. If Sánchez loses the election, then it might become good again as it's owned by the government. Traditionally it wasn't the most accurate pollster but the methodology and information provided was really good.

Of the private pollsters, the worst seems to be Metroscopia

[Former President tack50]

Apparently El Periódico de Cataluña published a poll about whether the Catalan issue should be solved with talks or with another round of article 155 (direct rule).

This wouldn't be noteworthy if it wasn't because they took crosstabs for several regions of Spain. The results are here:



Quite surprising to say the least. First of all, I'm surprised talks aren't just winning, but that they are winning handily. Brute force was a lot more popular a couple months ago.

Either way looking at the crosstabs obviously the Basques and Catalans are almost unanimously opposed. Galicia is also quite opposed.

Beyond that there aren't many significant differences elsewhere.

[Former President tack50]

Honestly, I don't consider PSOE-UP-Nationalists (other than PNV) to be a viable coalition. If ERC and PDECat refused to even pass Sánchez's budget, why would they vote for him as PM?

[Former President tack50]

The PP/C's seem, like Michael, to be losing moderate/centrist voters to PSOE. Of course, PSOE is benefiting with the implosion of Podemos, while the rightwing turn of PP and C's isn't also benefiting them because, i say, people prefer the original, Vox, than those who try to copy it, and might i say, very badly.

I think PP would be doing a much better under Soraya Saenz Santamaria than with Casado. She would attract moderate voters that, now, seem to be fleeing from C's to PSOE. But i would like to hear Tack's, Velasco's or Michael's opinion.

It's worth noting that the only poll that was done with both candidates found Soraya performing worse than Casado. Granted, that was well before the Vox surge, from a fairly unknown pollster (Top Position) and hypothetical polling in general is pretty bad.





Still it's the only concrete data point we have.

I personally think Soraya would make for an infinitely better PM than Casado. She might also be more effective at getting moderate Cs and maybe PSOE voters (I could even see her running to the left of Cs on many issues!)

However, I also think she would lose even more to Vox. My hypothetical is that if Soraya was PP leader, polling would probably be closer to something like:

PSOE: 26%
PP: 19%
Vox: 19%
UP: 14%
Cs: 11%

Others 11%

So ironically not much change in PP, but Cs collapsing. Though I could also see PP not being effective at getting Cs voters so it would be Cs doing well and PP going the way of the dodo.

[Former President tack50]

Electomania.es apparently will be publishing vote estimations all weekdays for all elections that will happen. (so mondays for the general election, tuesdays for the EU elections, etc)

These are not proper polls, but estimations based off an online panel. So you shoud treat them with caution.

http://electomania.es/ep4m/#idc-cover

Also, apparently premier Ximo Puig (PSOE) of the Valencian Community will call a snap regional election for the day of the general election (28th of April), probably trying to capitalize on the PSOE surge nationally.

https://www.lasprovincias.es/politica/puig-convoca-consell-adelanto-electoral-comunitat-valenciana-20190304090807-nt.html

Ironically, Puig was originally against a "super sunday" yet he will now call for one lol

If confirmed, there would be several firsts:

-First regional election to happen the same day as a general election since Andalucia 2008

-First snap regional election in a "non historic" autonomous community (ie not Andalucia/Catalonia/Basque Country/Galicia) since Asturias 2012

-First snap regional election that won't get a regular election when the original election term is over (wouldn't even make sense in this case)

Over the last 15 years, several autonomous communities passed new autonomy statutes giving themselves more powers, among those the power to call snap regional elections and not be confined to holding them alongside the local elections. However, the Valencian Community will be the first to exercise this power.

I'm currently rating the Valencian regional elections as lean PP. Puig is an underdog, but he is not overly disadvantaged.

[Former President tack50]

Ok, so today was Womens' day. Like last year, there was a strike programmed, which seems to be completely nonexistent, although I have to say it was marginally more successful than last year.

I do expect the protests this to be huge though, certainly larger than last year.

The main difference is obviously the fact that Vox is a lot larger than last year, wiht their controversial anti-feminist platform, as well as the PP turn to the right.

Today El Mundo published a poll about this issue. Here are its results:

Do you think it's reasonable that the anti gender violence law has stronger punishments for men than for women because of their physical superiority?

(Yes-No)

Men: 35-55
Women: 34-50
Overall: 34-53

Do you think your significant other is sexist? (machista)

(Yes-no)

Men: 2-87
Women: 12-77
Overall: 7-82

Do you consider yourself a feminist?
(Yes-no)

Men: 37-55
Women: 49-47
Overall: 43-51

I personally know mistreated women
(Yes-no)

Men: 40-59
Women: 48-52
Overall: 44-55

Do you consider Spanish politics to be sexist?

Men: 55-40
Women: 71-22
Overall: 64-31

Full poll, with party and age crosstabs: https://www.elmundo.es/papel/historias/2019/03/08/5c81477efdddffe7208b463a.html

[Former President tack50]

Actually, forget what I said earlier, the strike was actually a (partial) success this year.

Electric consumption is down 2% right now. That is indeed low, but putting it in comparison to other strikes puts them into context:

-The 2012 general strike saw roughly a 14% decrease.

-The 2017 Catalan strike saw roughly a 3% decrease

-The 2018 women's strike saw no decrease at this time, peaking at a 2% decrease around 8:30 (the time of the protests)

Assuming the energy consumption data follows a 2018-like pattern, that means the strike will see a 5% decrease or so at its peak, and a 2% decrease over the whole day.

Those are numbers comparable to the Catalan strike, albeit spread out across the whole country, and with less people to strike (7.5 million Catalans vs 23 million women, and that doesn't count the handful of men who follow the strike as well)

Still, certainly a lot bigger than last year.

[Former President tack50]

First of all, there has been a deal in Navarra between UPN (Right wing regionalists, traditionally close to PP), PP and Cs to run together in the general and regional elections. This is probably good news for conservatives, as it will optimize their vote much more efficiently than with separate parties. For the general election this gives them at least 2 Congress seats with a chance at 3. In the Senate it gives them either 1 or 3 Senators (I don't think htey will be locked out). And in the regional and local elections, it will optimize their vote as there was a real risk of both PP and Cs falling below the threshold. This is especially important for Pamplona mayor, where the Bildu incumbent is probably not favoured (albeit far from dead on arrival). The regioanl election is harder, but not impossible.

The platform will be called "Navarra suma" (Navarra adds up)

https://www.elperiodico.com/es/politica/20190311/pp-ciudadanos-upn-pacto-electoral-navarra-7347336

And speaking of regional elections...


Electomanía has been publishing weekly estimations for all elections (local, regional, general, EU) reciently. These aren't proper polls, but instead are "online panels".

I don't think they are of much use for the general election. However, given the lack of polling for the May regional elections (for good reason), I think their regional polls are worth checking out, as they will probably be the only polls we get until after the general election (and even after it, who knows how many regional polls we will get, there's also the EU election after all).

The only one that looks totally wrong is the Balearic Islands one (they give out 63 seats when there are only 59 seats in the Assembly). However there are other weird facts like the fact that they give Vox extremely good numbers and the fact that they seem to predict a lot of ticket splitting between the general, EU, local and regional elections.

In any case, here they are for this week.

http://electomania.es/ep13m/

Asturias
PSOE 15
PP 10
Cs 6
Vox 5
Podemos 5
IU 3
Foro Asturias 1 (right wing regionalists, PP split)

Castille-Leon
PSOE 28
PP 25
Vox 15
Cs 9
UP 3
UPL 1 (Centrist Leon regionalists)

Cantabria
PRC 10 (centre-left Cantabria regionalists)
PP 7
PSOE 6
Vox 5
Cs 4
UP 3

La Rioja
PSOE 10
PP 7
Cs 5
Vox 5
UP 4
PR+: 2 (centrist Riojan regionalists)

Navarra
UPN 14 (right wing Navarra regionalists/unionists, pro Spanish unity and the like)
PSOE 10
GBai 10 (centrist Navarra nationalists, pro joining the Basque Country, kind of a Navarra branch of PNV to some extent)
EH Bildu 8 (left wing Basque secessionists)
Podemos 4
IU 2
Cs 2

Madrid
PSOE 40
Vox 26
PP 24
Cs 20
MM 11 (left wing, Podemos split led by Íñigo Errejón)
Podemos 11

Extremadura
PSOE 24
PP 14
Vox 13
Cs 8
UP 6

Castille-La Mancha
PSOE 13
PP 10
Vox 5
Cs 3
UP 2

Murcia
PP 12
PSOE 11
Cs 10
Vox 8
UP 4

Aragon
PSOE 19
PP 16
Vox 11
UP 8
Cs 8
PAR 3 (centre-right Aragon regionalists)
ChA 2 (left wing Aragon regionalists)

Valencia (election in April, not May)
PSOE 29
PP 22
Compromís 15 (left wing Valencia nationalists)
Vox 15
Cs 13
UP 5

Balearic Islands (going with percentages as the seat count doesn't add up)

PSOE: 20.6%
PP 16.9%
Cs: 13.5%
MES: 13.3% (left wing Balearic Islands nationalists)
Vox: 11.5%
UP: 10.0%
PI: 8.0% (centre-right Balearic Islands nationalists)
MPM: 1.5% (brand of MES in Minorca)
GxF: 0.5% (centre-left Formentera local party)

Canary Islands

PSOE 20
CC 16 (centre-right Canarian nationalists)
PP 12
NCa 7 (left wing Canarian nationalists)
UP 6
Cs 4
ASG 3 (centre-left La Gomera local party)
Vox 2


If these "panel" is to be belived, my predictions would be:

Asturias: PSOE-Podemos-IU
Castille-Leon: PP-Vox-Cs
Cantabria: PRC-PSOE-UP
La Rioja: PSOE-PR+-Cs !!!
Navarra: PSOE-GBai-Podemos-IU
Madrid: Vox-PP-Cs !!
Extremadura: PP-Cs-Vox
Castille-La Mancha: PP-Vox-Cs
Murcia: PP-Cs-Vox
Aragon: PP-Cs-Vox
Valencia: PSOE-Compromís-UP
Balearic Islands: PSOE-Mes-MPM-GxF-PI
Canary Islands: PSOE-NCa-UP-ASG

The most surprising result by far is La Rioja. A community which everyone thought was safe for PP, but where this panel predicts there's a possibility of PSOE taking back the region for the first time since 1991. Other long term flips involve the Canary Islands going to PSOE for the first time since 1993, Navarra going to PSOE for the first time since 1995 and (technically) Madrid flipping for the first time since 1995 (if we forget about 2003's Tamayazo).

In terms of trends, this panel also predicts the left holding a lot better in places they reciently captured that have a regional language or some sort of regionalist movement (Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Valencia, Navarra) than even in their strongest strongholds like Castille-La Mancha or Extremadura.

Extremadura would be particularly damaging as, like with Andalucia, there has never been a right wing majority there. Extremadura is probably the closest community to Andalucia sociologically speaking. Unlike Andalucia Extremadura did have a PP premier at one point though; when in 2011 Jose Antonio Monago (PP) led a minority government propped up by IU abstaining. But even then, PSOE+IU had a majority on paper, it's just that IU decided to prop up a PP minority instead.

Finally, here are my personal ratings:

Asturias: 2 way tossup (PSOE-PP)
Castille-Leon: Safe PP
Cantabria: Lean PRC
La Rioja: Likely PP
Navarra: 3 way tossup (PSOE-GBai-UPN)
Madrid: 3 way tossup (PSOE-Cs-PP)
Extremadura: 2 way tossup (PSOE-PP)
Castille-La Mancha: 2 way tossup (PSOE-PP)
Murcia: Likely PP
Aragon: Likely PP
Valencia: 2 way tossup (PSOE-PP)
Balearic Islands: Lean PSOE
Canary Islands: Lean PSOE
Ceuta: Lean PP
Melilla: Lean PP

I think I used too many tossups But I do think there is genuinely a lot of uncertainty about the regional elections; even more than for the general one.

[Former President tack50]

To go into more detail about the Vox candidates, they've already presented a handful of candidates for Congress.

First of all, the more "normal" candidates. Their top 3 for Madrid seems to be:

1. Santiago Abascal (Party leader and candidate for PM)
2. Javier Ortega Smith (secretary general)
3. Ivan Espionsa de los Monteros (vicesecretary of international relations of the party)

Other candidates include:

-Ignacio Gil Lázaro for Valencia (former PP congressman)
-3 retired generals for Alicante, Castellón and Cádiz.
-Writer Jose María Marco for Senate in Madrid

Not sure when was the last time there were former military members in Congress. Podemos ran Julio Rodríguez (another retired general) last time, but he didn't get a seat.

Last time there was a military minister was all the way back in 1981 with Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, Deputy Prime Minister (and minister of defense) under Adolfo Suárez.

Worth noting that one of the 3 Vox generals (the one for Cádiz) signed a manifesto publicly defending the figure of Franco and claiming the 1936 coup was justified. Definitely scary stuff that looks out of the 1970s at best.

https://www.canarias7.es/nacional/vox-desvela-sus-primeros-candidatos-para-el-28a-NA6828294
https://elpais.com/politica/2019/03/17/actualidad/1552842527_993443.html

My guesses for other prominent figures of Vox:

-Rocío Monasterio for some sort of Madrid position (either mayor or regional parliament)
-Ignacio Garriga (the infamous "Vox black person", who is half black from Equatorial Guinea) for some sort of Barcelona position (probably Congress). Could see him running for mayor instead though
-Jose Antonio Ortega Lara (high profile ETA victim) either for Congress in Burgos or for regional parliament in Castille-Leon.

However, this all pales in comaprison to Vox's most colourful candidate so far. Fernando Paz, candidate for Congress in Albacete. He has apparently compared homosexuality with a disease, repeatedly praised francoism and denied the Holocaust. He has also taken part in meetings of neonazi parties like Alianza Nacional or Falange.

https://www.ultimahora.es/noticias/nacional/2019/03/19/1066029/candidato-vox-homofobo-negacionista-del-holocausto.html
https://www.larazon.es/espana/fernando-paz-el-polemico-candidato-de-vox-que-ve-la-homosexualidad-como-una-enfermedad-HM22485165

I imagine he will be purged from the party (but not the Francoist general). But still this definitely can't be helping Vox.

[Former President tack50]

So is the Spanish left realigning, losing its support in various fiefdoms in the south to urban areas and more urban/high cost of living areas?

I would say yes and no. The left is definitely losing its support in the southern fiefdoms, but it's not necesarily gaining in urban areas, but instead areas that aren't fully "culturally Spanish/Castillian"

I didn't publish them here, but I've been doing PVI graphs for all Spanish autonomous communities. And one of the maps I made was a 2000-2016 trend map:



Take the map with a huge amount of caution as I included parties like the Basque PNV or the Catalan CiU/PDECat on the right even if they would never support a PP government (especially not now, in 2000 it was a lot more likely)

Also keep in mind that the results in the African cities and the Canary Islands are distorted by unusually strong performances by GIL (in Ceuta/Melilla) or a quite left wing CC in the Canary Islands (led by Román Rodríguez back then, who is clearly a lefty at least now and even split from his former party)

Still, the PVI evolution is striking. Especially the fact that the South has trended a lot more than the North.

Fun fact I got from my graphs: 2016 was the first time Extremadura voted to the right of the nation since 1979. It also saw the worst results ever for the Spanish left in Andalucia, with a PVI of Left+5 (in 2000 it was at Left+24).

If you wonder why the left lost Andalucia, an important part is its march to the right. Since the current national polling average seems to be around Right+8; it's far from weird that Andalucia flipped.

I could share the full Excel sheet or the graphs if you want.

Still, while the left seems to be losing its old fiefdoms, it isn't winning necesarily in urban areas. I would expect small town places like Castellón or Álava to flip well before Madrid does.

Borrowing Atlas terms, it seems the Spanish left is losing its Andalusian #populists while gaining among Barcelona/Valencia Catalan coastal elitists.

[Former President tack50]

Thing is, 1 election is an outlier, but several elections make a trend.

Even if you did a hypothetical 2000-2011 map (the only election you did not mention), it wouldn't be terribly different from that one for the most part.

I think the movement in Catalonia and the Basque country is not based on the Spanish left performing better, but instead on a nationalist realignment.

Think about this, in 2000, Batasuna was banned and both EA and ERC were very small compared to PNV and CiU. In 2016, ERC is actually larger than PDECat and Bildu is much larger than the old EA.

While the result of the election is very unclear, I think the geographic trends are very clear and will actually accelerate in 2019. I think there will now be a realignment based on the division between a left wing periphery and a right wing centralist Spain.

Honestly the most striking result for me is not the fact that the periphery is moving left and the center/Castillian Spain is moving right, but the north-south division within Castillian Spain.

Places like Cantabria or La Rioja have barely moved at all while Andalucia has moved right very fast. It's not even that "they were conservative already and they had nowhere to go"; as conservative stronghold Murcia was actually the place that moved the furthest right alongside Andalucia (from Right+11 in 2000 to Right+27 in 2016 for a trend of 16 points)

[Former President tack50]

Also, since I was speaking about Spanish electoral geography, I guess I should mention that GAD3 and ABC published a poll where they split their results by province.

They claim they will release full results by autnonomous community for some of them tomorrow or on Monday.

But today they released their poll with maps



The map both confirms and dismisses some of the claims I've made about trends. The blocks map clearly shows how Catalonia and the Basque Country are strong left wing areas (then again not surprising as PP has always had problems there). Andalucia is split. It's still a very left wing area even if it's trending right. I guess it's still not enough to get anything other than a tie out of it.

Surprisingly, the Canary Islands vote left! They have always been a right wing stronghold or at worst a tossup. So to see them going left is surprising to say the least.

As for the party map, it's a PSOE landslide. They even win in several places that weren't even won by Felipe González in 1982 (Lugo and Pontevedra in Galicia and Soria in Castille-Leon) despite a much bigger popular vote gap (48-27 compared to what, 31-21 at best here?). Of course back then there was a more marked 2 party system, sort of.

[Former President tack50]

Why are CC on the right? Couldn't they support a PSOE government?

Could? Absolutely, but it's not the most likely thing in the world.

Relations between CC and PSOE are quite bad since CC kicked out PSOE of the regional government in 2016 (since then CC has led a weak minority government in the islands). CC also dislikes UP a lot. However, CC could support a PSOE government, especially a PSOE-Cs one, but not a PSOE-UP one.

On the other hand, I don't think CC would prop up a PP-Cs-Vox government either.

CC is nominally centrist, but clearly much closer to the right than the left. Still their placement is incorrect on the graph. If we were doing a graph based on ideology, my proposal would be:

Bildu-ERC-UP-PSOE-PDECat-PNV-CC-Cs-Navarra Suma-PP-Vox

[Former President tack50]

Today the preliminary lists for the General election got published. Some of these will drop out by the 2nd of April when election authorities determine whether the required paperwork is in order or not.

I won't cover all 52 provinces, but here is the full list as published by the election authorities:

https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2019/03/27/pdfs/BOE-A-2019-4492.pdf

For my province of Las Palmas (which is also Velasco's province I think?) the lists we have are (as per usual, lists with a chance at getting seats nationally or just getting an ok result are coloured while minor lists are in black):

Canarian Coalition-Canarian Nationalist Party (CC-PNC)
Citizens-Party of the citizenry (Cs)
New Canaries (NCa)
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)
Canaries Now-Nationalist Alternative and Popular Unity (AHORA CANARIAS)
Communist Party of the Canarian People (PCPE)
Animalist Party against the Mistreatment of Animals (PACMA)
For a Fairer World (PUM+J)
United We Can (Podemos-IU-Equo)
People's Party (PP)
Humanist Party (PH)
Zero Cuts-Green Group (Recortes Cero-GV)
Vox (Vox)

So 13 lists in total, albeit only 5 for fringe parties and of those 5, 3 are the kind of party that has a small, but constant niche (Canarian Secessionists, Tankie Communists and the Zero Cuts people) That seems kind of low, with only 2 truly fringe parties (PH and PUM+J). Kind of happy that my signature for the Humanist party didn't go unnoticed though

[Former President tack50]

José Manuel Villarejo is a retired police superintendent imprisoned since November 2017, charged as the alleged leader of a police mafia. Mr Villarejo admitted today before the National High Court that he had access to the contents of a cellular phone belonging to an aide of Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias. According to the defence lawyer, the corrupt policeman denied any involvement in the theft of said cellar phone that contained personal and political information of Pablo Iglesias. Mr Villarejo tried to Justify having information concerning Pablo Iglesias (it was found in a pen drive when he was arrested) alleging there was an ongoing police investigation.

By 2016 and shortly after the Podemos irruption in Congress with 69 seats, that is to say in the heyday of the Pablo Iglesias party, the online newspaper OK Diario released a fake news on an alleged police report that said the Iran government financed Pablo Iglesias and people close to him. This writing was called the PISA report (PISA means Pablo Iglesias Limited Company) and its authorship is attributed to a so-called patriotic brigade within the police during the term of Rajoy's Interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz whose alleged leader was Mr Villarejo. Said reports were dismissed by a judge in June 2016, ruling they lacked evidence. The final goal of these reports was apparently to bring Podemos down and prevent a negotiation between the Pablo Iglesias party and the PSOE led by Pedro Sánchez.

Yesterday Pablo Iglesias testified before the Court as injured party. He could not reveal details due to sub iudice rule, but stated his commitment with the truth, justice, institutions, dirt cleansing, etcetera

Regarding Villarejo, I personally think hes best recient report has been the fact that he claims that Morocco and France's secret service did the Madrid bombings.

I have to say, that's a nice change of pace from the usual right wing "ETA did the Madrid bombings and PSOE hid the evidence" conspiracy.

[Former President tack50]

...what motive did they suggest the French and Morroccan spooks had in blowing up 200 civilians?

The conspiracy tends to think that when Aznar sided with the US, UK and Poland over France and Germany when the Irak war and in other EU related votes (like the Nice treaty), France was extremely angry and wanted some sort of revenge.

Similarly, Morocco wanted revenge for the "Perejil island war". So they conspirated together to create a terrorist attack on Madrid.

The conspiracy also claims that another motive for the attack was that it would cause a change in government, with PSOE being much more friendly to French and Moroccan interests than PP.

Does it make sense? In my opinion no, but still it's a common conspiracy theory. In fact when Villarejo outed that, Vox and PP started with "11-M truthism", claiming that we don't know the full truth.

https://elpais.com/politica/2019/03/11/actualidad/1552335784_713196.html

https://www.twitter.com/Santi_ABASCAL/status/1105000639543869440

15 years later we still want to know the truth about the 11-M attacks, which caused 192 deaths and a planned government change. We do not forget!

[Former President tack50]

After this, I don't think there's any pollster showing a right wing majority in terms of seats. Although all but one pollster do show a right wing victory in the popular vote, generally around 6 points or so.

[Former President tack50]

The aquienvoto test for who you should vote for has been updated with questions and parties for 2019.

www.aquienvoto.org

Here are my results:

ERC: 64%
PSOE: 62%
UP: 62%
Bildu: 60%
PNV: 59%
PDECat: 55%
Cs: 49%
PP: 43%
Vox: 30%

Honestly very surprised to see ERC on top and UP tied with PSOE. Everything else as expected though.

[Former President tack50]

It's been almost 3 years since the 2016 general election, but El País has published a map of results and turnout by precinct for the 2016 general election.

https://elpais.com/politica/2019/03/28/actualidad/1553783809_455746.html

Really interesting map tbh, I only wish we had an option to show the party results directly as well, but extremely interesting nontheless.