same shit, different nation. far right politicians hide behind freedom of speech 'concerns' in order to not condemn their voters and supporters.
oh right, the slippery slope of pushing back against racism and anti-semitism - just an excuse to control our thoughts...

Do you think the UP might be willing to cooperate (or even coalise) with the PSOE this time around? PSOE + UP + MP + support from smaller parties should still be enough to get to a majority.

UP will likely still ask for ministries, unless they get crap results. PSOE might have to accept these demands if they don't get a significant gain of seats.

But then there's a problem, and that's that C's and PP, despite being the possibility of them being willing to let Sánchez form a government in order to avoid a "re-repeat" of the elections, will never accept the formation of a government with ministries led by UP. So Sánchez would have to rely on the separatist parties, which would be very unpopular and would demand an official pardon for the jailed politicians, which would likely be a political suicide.

What about PP + VOX + Cs + some non-separatist 'other' parties?

VOX is completely incompatible with any regionalist parties. One of VOX's main goals is to abolish all of the regional administrative divisions.

Final results in the spanish parliamentary elections:



As expected, an even more hung parliament. The repetition of the elections has served no purpose, and has only made things more complicated. PSOE lost 3 seats, UP lost 7 (a sixth of the ones they had) and C's had a complete meltdown losing 47 (around 80% of their seats). Only PP and VOX have risen, and they've done so significantly (PP gained 21, which is around a 30% increase, while VOX gained 28, which is more than double of what they had), but their combined gain only exceeds the amount C's lost by two... meaning that the right block remains pretty much the same.

So, PSOE+UP+MP have 7 seats less than in April, while PP+C's+VOX have 2 seats more than what they had. Not much of a change, between the blocks (a better result for the right, even though they still hold less seats than the left), and the real winners are the regional parties which increase their share of 38 seats to 43. Several new regional parties have entered parliament, like the left-wing nationalist party of Galicia BNG, the radical Catalan separatist and anti-capitalist party CUP, and two regionalist parties from the small constituencies of Teruel (Teruel Existe, the protest party I mentioned earlier) and Melilla (Coalición Por Melilla - Coalition for Melilla) a left wing party.

It will be interesting to see how this works out. Obviously a grand coallition would be the most reasonable fix, but this is unthinkable in Spain. I really don't know what will happen. The idea of yet another electoral repeat is something I can't rule out, but it seems so absurd to me... either PP will let Sánchez's government take off, or Sánchez will try to form an impossible alliance with all sorts of minor nationalist, rationalist and separatist parties.

None of the party leaders have given many clues on what they'll do now, although UP has said that the priority must be to stop the rise of the "far-right" in regards to VOX, perhaps hinting that they will soften their demands in their negotiations with PSOE. Meanwhile, in C's, the party's leader has shockingly refused to step down, but has instead proposed that a party committee is held asap to allow the base members decide the party's future.

Rivera (leader of Cs) must be getting the boot, doesnt he? Say they pivot back from their current decidedly center-right position to a true centrist or perhaps even slightly center-left position - wouldnt that open up new possibilities?

In that scenario, would a cooperation or toleration between PSOE, UP, MP and Cs be imaginable? together, they would hold 168 of the 176 required seats, so they should be able to get to a majority with the help of smaller, non-catalan regional parties (Basque and so on).
not having to rely on any catalan parties should make things a lot easier...

Rivera should indeed get the boot, but can't say it's 100% guaranteed if he decides to run again for the position. It's hard to imagine many of the current big names in the party running against Rivera, who has a very firm grip on the party; especially now that most of his critics began abandoning the party over the past year. Hope he just steps aside and lets the party's candidates run freely.

I mean, I think he'd lose against pretty much any decent candidate, but it might be hard to find a good alternative willing to stand against him if he's running for the position again.

As to what the future position of the party will be... well, who knows... it will depend on who leads it. Hopefully it will go back to being a centrist party. Many of us who used to vote for them will likely accept anything from centre-left to centre-right as long as it isn't a sectarian party that vetoes other democratic forces, and is willing to reach programmatic consensus in order to push for unionism, european federalism, progressiveness, middle class politics, political reforms, centrist social-liberal economic policies and a pro-scientific/development and reasonable anti-climate change agenda.

As for the scenario of cooperation you describe... I can't imagine C's and UP working together. It might be viable with MP, but UP is basically alt-left populism and they are almost in polar opposites when it comes to territorial issues such as the Catalan crisis.

As for C's working with the non-catalan parties... it might work out with the regionalists of the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Melilla and Teruel (5 seats in total) because they are non-nationalist parties that advocate for Spanish unionism. With the galician left party BNG it's and the centre-right basque party PNV it's very unlikely, because they have nationalist agendas that push for the recognition of their regions as nations with the right to self-determination, even if they aren't separatist parties. With left-wing basque separatist party EH-Bildu, it's absolutely impossible... firstly because they are separatist, and secondly because it's a party that houses all sorts of former ETA terrorists and still refuses to fully condemn the past actions of the terrorist group, even if they are now a party in favour of peace and democracy.

We will probably have a few months of political uncertainty until a government can be formed, or in the worst case new elections are called. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't expect anything to be solved before Spring tbh...

This post was edited by zarkadon on Nov 11 2019 05:01am

Interesting turn of events:

The leader of C's, Albert Rivera, has just announced that he's immediately stepping down from his position, resigning from his seat in parliament and abandoning politics.

Finally. Now lets see what the party's future is.

Ok, but if you vote yet again in a couple of months - what would have changed by then to break up the stalemate? I dont see how either block should be able to reach a workable majority for a coalition or cooperation government unless big things happen (for example an escalation of the violence in Catalonia, the world economy going down and pushing unemployment in spain, or the migration crisis escalating on the spanish shores). Without such an exogenous shock, voting again and again is pointless.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 11 2019 08:11am