Sánchez or Vox, on a systemic level
The PP u-turns and does a deal with Abascal's party in Extremadura.
If the Spanish electoral system were like the British or American electoral system, first-past-the-post, with one MP per constituency, it would be possible to "overthrow Sánchez" with a more local effort that is less damaging to the system as a whole. The PP and Vox and whoever wanted to have a go from the remnants of UPyD and Ciudadanos could use their energies to convince the voters of "Madrid-Moncloa" or whatever the PM’s constituency were called that it would perhaps be better to rid the country of the narcissism or political thuggishness or lies or the deals with the Basque separatists or the pardons for the Catalan separatists or whatever arguments they wanted to use. But kick Sánchez out in his constituency.
The Spanish electoral system, though, as we all know, doesn’t work like that: it works with closed lists in which MP’s careers and fortunes do not depend on their relationships with voters and on trying to solve some real problems a bit but on their relationship with the party bosses at each level, from town halls through the Spanish regional governments and up to the national level with the PP and PSOE and the PM’s office in Moncloa. So, "overthrowing Sánchez" in the Spanish system is not about voters in a constituency but a tribal affair that implies a shift to getting rid of the whole other gang. In exchange this time for what at a systemic level?
In exchange, this time round, as Sánchez rightly pointed out the day he suddenly announced this snap general election, for Feijóo's PP putting Vox, with their rancid, anachronistic, nationalist, xenophobic discourse, into national government in Spain. It is not only in Valencia like at the start, or a few Town Halls with their Vox councilors railing straight away against LGTBI rights or feminism. There is no longer any doubt that Feijóo would include Abascal in his new right-wing national government.
María Guardiola, in Extremadura, who just last week swore blind that she would never govern with “those who deny chauvinist violence, those who use the broad brush, those who dehumanise immigrants, and those who unfurl a canvas that throws the LGTBI flag into the rubbish bin”, has been told to shut up, u-turn and sign the deal with Vox, and she has done so today.
"What has taken place in Extremadura, well, we all knew that what was going to happen has happened", Sánchez said today: "Where they can govern, because the numbers allow them to, the Popular Party will govern with Vox". So that’s clear now, three weeks before ballots are cast. The PP has confirmed the frame Sánchez suggested at the end of May. Now it just remains to be seen if this is what Spanish voters really want at a systemic level, especially with the disappearance of the country’s centre party, Ciudadanos. As much as they dislike Sánchez after five years, are they so fed up with him that they want to put Vox straight into national government alongside Feijóo, with their exclusive discourses and attitudes? After five years of the socialist-communist left-wing coalition, are we going straight over to a conservative-far-right coalition, without stopping somewhere more sensible?
Now left-wing voters who imagined perhaps voting for Feijóo to punish Sánchez a bit will have to weigh that desire with the possibility of Abascal or Buxadé speaking on behalf of Spain in international forums on some key issue, or of further promoting what is already happening with culture, family, feminism and LGTBI issues. On the right, if a voter knows that the PP is going to include Vox in its government, why not vote for Abascal to give them even more weight and thus ensure Feijóo complies? And what will those who can no longer vote for Ciudadanos vote?
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Scary. I'd like to think that the vast majority of voters in Spain are clear headed enough to read into what these "marriages of convenience" could mean. And clear headed enough to recognise Maria Guardiola's u-turn is a sign of weakness. Any changes in the electoral system here, I think, are likely to be years ahead. Don't forget , Spain has been without a dictator for only 48 years - a very short time in history.
It's really quite dispiriting. The more I see of other countries' arrangements, the more I grow to appreciate what I grew up with in Ireland: single transferable vote PR, multi-seat constituencies, a written Constitution that is both honoured by Govt & the courts and amendable by the people. It doesn't mean that all is perfect and people dance in the streets of Dublin or Galway about it, but it's pretty appalling how Spanish politics seems to exist primarily as a way to ensure one set of parasites never quite manage to kill the host before being elbowed aside by the next set.
We could do with a German-style Constitutional Court, unafraid to ban parties that threaten democratic norms, and thereby teach the fascists and ethno-nationalists some manners.