4 scenarios for the Spanish general election
New polls out this morning give the Popular Party anywhere between 125 and 154 seats and Vox anywhere between 25 and 43 seats, which is a broad brush.
An overall majority in Spain’s 350-seat lower chamber is 176 seats. Pollster 40db in left-wing El País gives the PP and Vox a total of 168 seats, which would not be enough to govern together. GAD3 in the conservative newspaper ABC has them on anywhere between 175 and 183 seats.
Nobody is suggesting an overall majority for the PP alone. Here are four possible outcomes for the Spanish general election this month:
Far-right in national government: the most talked about option so far this election, the global far-right monster Sánchez says is coming to Spain via a marriage of convenience with the conservative Popular Party unless voters stop it, to the horror of European liberals and leftists. Spain would suddenly switch to the Hungarian or Polish end of the European political spectrum. Whatever Feijóo tries to tell voters over the next three weeks about wanting to govern alone, the fact is that the PP and Vox have now done multiple regional and local deals for government since the elections at the end of May. This will be the major, very divisive election campaign issue. New all-time-high levels of polarisation against the regional separatists and the left await the country if they manage it. But even if they win on July 23, will the two parties get over the key 176-seat barrier for an overall majority? Some polls suggest they might not.
Stalemate and repetition: Spanish politicians are not afraid of spending many months standing firmly in their ideological trenches and not budging a single inch, to the extent of forcing new general elections to try to get their way. In the 2015-2016 election cycle, Rajoy and Sánchez fought it out for almost a whole year, with two general elections and two unsuccessful confidence debates (one each for Sánchez and Rajoy). The problem was eventually solved by the PSOE kicking Sánchez out as leader and changing his firm “no” policy towards the conservatives to an abstention. In the 2019 election cycle, the country again had to vote twice when the politicians couldn’t agree on a compromise, and again Sánchez was a key figure, notably that time against Ciudadanos leader Rivera. A 180-seat socialist-liberal coalition was not to be and the stalemate that year ended with the socialist-communist government with Podemos, just months before the Covid pandemic began. If stalemate happens again, Spain might not get a new government until some time in 2024.
Frankenstein II: Spain’s first coalition government since the Franco period happened on the left between the PSOE and Podemos and was supported by Basque and Catalan separatists and nationalists. This is what led to the pardons of the Catalan separatists and Bildu including 44 convicted terrorists in its electoral lists in May, and winning more councillors. The right, with a combined total of 151 seats between the PP, Vox and Ciudadanos, was unable to stop it, quickly labelled it the “Frankenstein” coalition and hated it intensely from the start. If the left and regionalist parties end up with just a few more MPs than the PP and Vox in three weeks time, there is nothing to stop them all from repeating the past four years and governing like that again until 2027. PNV spokesman Aitor Esteban said this weekend that Basque conservatives would not support the PP because it is doing deals with Vox. The price would be even more separatist demands from Esquerra and Bildu. The right would despise it even more intensely than the first version;
Conservatives go it alone: Could the Popular Party try to govern alone, as a minority government, if it got somewhere around the 150 seats some polls are suggesting? Possibly. Feijóo could try. In those previous years with the repetitions, four general elections in four years in total, the leading party at each repetition obtained 93, 123, 123 or 137 seats. In 2016, 137 seats was enough for Rajoy to get appointed PM with a simple (not overall) majority, although it took months. So 150 or so seats would be above that marker and tantalisingly close to getting the top job. Would the Frankenstein coalition members add up to more than 150 MPs and all vote against a PP minority government, regardless of what Vox ended up doing? Or could Feijóo tempt Basque and Catalan conservatives to jump ship and shift the balance with a promise not to do a deal with Vox?
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