Spanish parliamentary and senate elections today. A repeat of the April elections after president Pedro Sánchez failed to form government due to the hung parliament.
I know I said I'd post info on this, but I've just been really, really busy. Even considering that for some years now my posting activity has dropped, I don't recall many occasions where I've gone 3 weeks straight without a single post in any jsp sub forum
Anyway, the media was expecting a very low turnout today, but so far it seems like an average voting occasion. 3% less turnout at noon when compared to the previous election from a few months ago... but that one had an exceptionally high turnout, so this one is so far on par with other general elections (like 2011 or 2015).
Most polls predict that not much is going to change... another hung parliament is expected, and this time it might be even more chaotic that in April. The difference is that centre-right wing parties C's and PP have said they are potentially open to the idea of letting Sánchez form a government in order to prevent yet another repeat... and then follow it up with a hard parliamentary opposition as soon as the term starts (forcing Sánchez to try to negotiate each bill separately with other parties).
The media expects these results:
Centre-left PSOE: Similar or slightly worse results. Pedro Sánchez's strategy of going for an electoral repeat in order to increase its parliamentary power won't work according to the most recent polls.
Centre-right conservative PP: Significantly better results, but still far away from PSOE. It's gaining a lot of voters from C's and making a strong campaign centered around the idea of a utility vote for liberalism and unionism. The party has a adopted a much more centrist approach than in April, and has given significant roles to several of the most prominent moderate former ministers during the Rajoy government.
Centre-right progressive C's: Terrible results are expected. They could get under 10% of the votes and 15 or so seats. Their centrist voter base isn't forgiving it's candidate's (Rivera) strategy of veto-ing Sánchez and ruling out the possibility of a centrist PSOE-C's government, despite that being a viable option that added up to a majority and could have prevented this electoral repeat.
Alt-right conservative VOX:A very significant increase. As a more centrist PP devours C's, VOX feeds on PP's right flank. Also, the party's strong stance against the "too soft" sentence for the separatist politicians that unilaterally declared Catalonia's failed independence has attracted many hard unionists from all sides of the political spectrum. The party's candidate, Abascal, has had strong debates and has shifted the focus on national unionism and patriotism rather than catholic conservatism.
Alt-left UP: Similar results. The party seems to have reached it's lowest point in April and probably won't sink further.
Left-wing green party MP: Very weak results. Many polls were expecting this party, which broke away from UP, to get around 15 seats, but now most polls predict something like 3-5 seats. It seems like it's stealing votes from PSOE rather than UP.
Regionalist parties: Similar or slightly stronger results over all for all of the parties. In Catalonia, the radical anti-capitalist separatist party CUP is running for the first time (until now, they didn't contest national elections because they don't recognize Spain's sovereignty in Catalonia... but they've changed their policy this time) and they could steal a couple of seats from other catalan parties. Also, in the small rural province of Teruel, a protest party (Teruel Existe - Teruel Exists) could enter parliament after a strong campaign centered around protesting about how rich areas of Spain like Madrid, Catalonia or the Basque regions get all sort of services with the country's deep rural areas are forgotten.
Significant events that occurred during the campaign and could impact the results:
1. Violent protests in Catalonia after the sentencing of the separatist politicians that declared the independence of Catalonia. These were pretty rough for about a week, but have died down as soon as the weather became colder and started raining a bit.
2. The exhumation of fascist dictatorship Francisco Franco from the Civil War memorial where he was buried, and his new burial in the graveyard where his wife lays (which was actually his dying wish). Most people and parties are happy with this, but there has been a lot of criticism towards Sánchez for carrying this out during the campaign. Beyond that, alt-left UP criticises this as a "cosmetic move" because according to them "PSOE moves Franco's mummy, but leaves his true remains in the nation's institutions and political and economic culture". Centre-right progressive C's and left-green MP approve, but criticize the timing. Centre-right conservative PP criticizes that the exhumation stirs up old debates that do more harm than good, and that Sánchez is willing to risk creating social tension just for a handful of votes. Meanwhile alt-right VOX has been highly critical of the whole thing, as they consider it a sickening and illegal desecration of spanish citizen's grave with the only purpose of rewriting history according to the "leftist agenda".
3. The economic predictors being negative, as a new world-wide financial crisis threatens the country.
Over all, there could be a lot of protest votes as people are fed up with the political class and are angry over the electoral repeat. This is why the most centrist parties will likely get worse results, while the extremes will rise.
Poll of polls:
Results from the april elections:
This post was edited by zarkadon on Nov 10 2019 09:31am