spainrico

'Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced a General Election for Sunday 23 July. The surprise announcement follows the poor results for his PSOE socialist party in Sunday’s local and regional elections. ALSO READ: Spain’s right-wing make significant gains in local and regional elections.

Prior to Sunday’s debacle, Sánchez had insisted that he would ride out his four-year term with the left-wing coalition partner, the Podemos group, indicating that an election would be held in December.

The woes for Sánchez and his socialist party come as Spain is due to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union on 1 July.

Sánchez said he had spoken to king Felipe VI and would hold a special Cabinet meeting later Monday to dissolve parliament.'

‘I have taken this decision given the results of the elections held yesterday,’ Sánchez from the Moncloa presidential palace on Monday morning.

The local and regional elections saw Spain taking a major swing to the right and made the leading opposition right-wing People’s Party (PP) the main political force in the country.

https://www.spainenglish.com/2023/05...unday-23-july/

Ronnyone

We are already debating this in the other thread if you are interested

spainrico

OK thanks - I thought my other thread was getting a bit congested and people may miss this new headline news - I will leave it up to Rosemary & Co if they want to delete.

Ronnyone

Agree. We should bring the election debate here to make it easier. Also I realise we are going to have a fairly hot debate but I hope it doesn't get shut down because we joust with each other. That is the nature of political debates and I feel that its important that as Spain is our home we should be permitted to take an active interest in the politics of the country and not just be focussed on tax returns and healthcare.

I am saying this because they have now closed the other thread!!

Rosemary

I have now closed the other thread to avoid confusion and people duplicating their replies.

Rosemary

rbs_gb

now, where were we..........

Ronnyone

rbs: Unfortunately nobody has told the King that in Andalucia it is prohibited to have an election in July/August as he signed the BOE today!

rbs_gb

Yep, my comment was in reply to you about the effect on holidays and the electoral tables. Andalucia has that written into their local law precisely so that annual holidays do not come into play. General elections are different

In terms of the potential effect on the General Election, there is an effect in the Ley d'Hont which is the ruling principal of Spanish PR that to be elegible for seats a party must poll at least 3% of the elegible votes actually cast. That means in a low turn out/high abstention election, that the smaller parties (who can generally motivate their electorate more) have an opportunity to gain more seats. In the municipal elections, Podemos were around 4% so could easily be on the way out if there is a high turn out. Sanchez needs to protect that wing of his coalition and voting during holiday time should help him in that.

Ronnyone

If you are going to analyse things like this I am pretty sure every single month could be said to have advantages / disadvantages. Anyway PP are delighted and not complaining so it cant be considered that much of a problem. Besides it gives the Andalucían government time to get on building their luxury urbanization in Doñanda which they will sell to the super rich Russians after the war. ( thats a joke!).

spainrico

Thanks, Rosemary

Lagoo

Looks like two parties have died today.

First Ciudadanos (Cs - Citizens in English) announced they won't be standing in the general election and it appears they'll dissolve. There's a municipality near me that voted 70% for Cuidadanos so it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

Then Podemos Unidos (United we can - ironic given they split into two) are on the point of becoming part of new party Movimiento Sumar (~United Movement), headed by former Podemos member Yolander Díaz, the current Second Deputy Prime Minister.

It seems to me that there's a lot of horse trading before an election while small parties form larger groups to face the electorate, then, since Sánchez's coalition (apparently the first coalition since 1978), there's post-election horse trading between pre-election coalitions. Is this a fair analysis?

rbs_gb

Yep, you've broadly got it. The horse trading now is all about list negotiations. You vote for a list of candidates, and any list needs to attract a minimum 3% to be elegible for any seats. Podemos have plummeted since their peak, just like C's, and would probably not get that 3% and almost certainly disappear too, along with their main two candidates Irene Montero and Belara. So by joining with Sumar, the rebranded Izquierda Unida, the list will certainly be able to get enough votes to get seats. Imagine if Podemos got 2.9% and Sumar gets 2,9%, then neither would get seats, so together, 5.8% gives them seats, Now the negotiation for positions on the lists starts, because first of all coalitions of parties have to be formally announced within 10 days of the BOE announcement which was today. There is then another ten days in which each coalition has to present its list of candidates in order of priority, so that is why you often hear someone referred to as "number 3 on the list" etc. When the votes are counted, and the number of seats for a list has been calculated, lets say 10 seats, then it is the first ten candidates on that list that get the seats.

So the horse trading now is that each part of each coalition is negotiating which members get which position on the list, so it is fair to assume that Yolanda Diaz will be #1, but then who comes as #2? Garzon, Belara, Montero etc etc. So all the horse trading guarantees no-one a seat, but just improves their probability of continuing as an MP.

Lagoo

Thanks, very clear.

rbs_gb

Should also note that it is one list per party or coalition per province, so here in Cantabria, we only have one province, so the parties will each have just one list to cover the whole of Cantabria. Here we have 5 seats in the Spanish Parliament and the number of seats in each province look like this:
https://media.vozpopuli.com/2019/04/...99_660x371.jpg

Ronnyone

Yes good explanation as you are going to keep hearing people talking about the position of people on the lists and it is very confusing for many of us. True also about podemos and sumar as both parties are trying to save themselves by uniting. I do agree that the potential coalition mean you often don't know what kind of government you might be voting for. Feijoo is already denying that they will make a pact with Vox but it isn't a promise meaning he can easily couch their relationship as support when needed etc. Exactly the same with POSE so neither side are anymore honest than each other. Still I like all the sandals: POSE candidate involved in a kidnapping, PP mayor refusing to pay a speeding fine of some ridiculous speed, new candidate arrested for buying postal votes and finally a voting table president who left for a coffee and never returned!!!!! And a hilarious clip of a PP mayor behaving like a frightened child in a press conference as a bee circles his head!!!