If the democratic consensus does not collapse in a Portuguese-style outcome (where the announced tie between right and left turned into an absolute majority for the socialist António Costa), the elections on 23-J will end with a victory for the bloc made up of the PP and Vox. At least that’s what the overwhelming majority of polls predict. In fact, some forecasts have a very predictable character after the disappearance of Ciutadans.
For example, if in the elections of April 2019 the Popular (with 16.7% of the ballots) and Cs (with 15.9%) had presented themselves under the same acronym, the result would have been very different: the centre-right would have collected almost 33% of the votes and 139 seats. And even if the left had obtained the same votes, it would have obtained 11 fewer seats. In other words, the PP-Cs merger would be the winner of the elections and would have obtained, together with Vox, eight more seats than the left (and altogether, 15 more than it actually obtained).
Of course, the conservative bloc would still have been very far (14 deputies) from the absolute majority. Could the same thing happen in the 23-J elections? Most polls say no and that the Popular Party and Vox will be above the barrier of 176 deputies. However, previous elections that have delivered an absolute majority to the conservative space (which in Spain would include from the center-right to the ultra-right) show extrapolations that oscillate between an insufficient majority and an overwhelming triumph.
In this sense, the 1977 elections gave the conservative forces more than 180 deputies, with a total vote count of 45.3%. The left, on the other hand, and although it only got eight tenths less, it got 144 deputies. The paradox of projecting that correlation to the current scenario is that the result in seats could be very different: less than 170 for the right and 154 for the left. The explanation? In 1977 and 1979, the PSOE concentrated its vote in more urban Spain, while the right was very strong in deep Spain.
Proof of this was that in several provinces of Castile and Galicia the UCD and Aliança Popular won all possible seats and the left did not get any representation. And although the irruption of Vox has strengthened the conservative vote in rural Spain, it does not seem that it can reach the levels of almost 50 years ago. In fact, in the 1979 elections, and despite having fewer votes than the socialists and communists, the right retained the absolute majority and the left repeated the same number of seats.
On the other hand, nowadays, the correlation of 1979 would leave a kind of technical tie on the 160 seats between the PP and Vox, on the one hand, and the PSOE and Sumar, on the other. To achieve an absolute majority now, the conservative bloc would have to repeat at least the correlation of 2000, when it obtained 45% of the vote and almost five points ahead of the left (which translated into an absolute majority of 183 deputies). And even in that case – which would now lead to 34% of the votes for the Popular and 11% for Vox – the conservative majority would be very narrow in the current scenario.
Only an advantage of the right over the left equal to or greater than five points would generate a clear majority of the conservative bloc. 12 years ago, the PP (186), UPyD (5) and FA (1) won more than 190 seats and 50% of the votes (13 points more than the left). And a similar calculation would now be achieved by the PP and Vox if they reproduced that advantage. But the final scenario will depend, as always, on the mobilization of each block.
