The spring of 2024 will stage a tight electoral triangulation: Euskadi (April 21), Catalonia (May 12) and Europe (June 9). Faced with these calls: what do the surveys say? And, above all, what don’t they say? What they say represents a great paradox: the most distant elections (the European elections in June) are those that present the most defined forecast: a clear victory for the Popular Party by a difference of around 10 points over the PSOE. And in seats, a maximum of 26 MEPs for the PP, and 19 for the Socialist Party.
However, the final outcome could offer some changes: stagnation of the PP (whose electorate is already highly mobilized) and improvement of the PSOE (if it manages to reactivate its undecided voters: up to 16%). And the same in the case of nationalist groups, which will also activate their potential voters to a greater degree as the electoral date approaches. Without ruling out a growing rebalance between Sumar and Podemos from their strategy of “mutual assured destruction.”
As for the other two calls – Euskadi and Catalonia – what the polls say is as significant as what they do not say. The dilemma between continuity or change presents in both cases contradictory indicators that fuel the suspicion of underlying movements that could go unnoticed (as has already happened in the recent past).
In the Basque case, the most recent polls – even those carried out with the campaign already underway – maintain the technical tie between PNV and Bildu at around 34% of the votes and 28 or 29 seats. In theory, the final selection of that 30% of voters who decide their ballot in the last week of the campaign should favor the PNV. According to the CIS, more than 50% of those consulted approve of the management of the Basque Government and 75% judge the economic situation of Euskadi to be positive. Furthermore, the Peneuvista candidate surpasses his Bildu rival in preparation, confidence and preference as Lehendakari (although less and less).
In fact, Bildu overwhelmingly prevails over the PNV in the age groups of 18 to 44 years (with advantages of 15 or more points). So what doesn’t the survey tell us? The key question: how the struggle between antagonistic indicators will be resolved. Will the desire for renewal prevail or caution in favor of what is already known?
Finally, the once Catalan oasis has become a labyrinth that seems to lead to an endless crossing of the desert. In this case the winner is guessed, but not who will be able to govern. The polls move in a range of seats that places the independence movement in the worst of its nightmares: the eventual loss of the absolute majority in the Parliament. But this is a possibility that not all surveys consider.
And, furthermore, even if the independentists remained below 68 seats, the probable winner, the socialist Salvador Illa, could encounter several blocking majorities. With a ceiling of 50 seats alongside the common ones, but the vote against the secessionists, Illa would not be able to be invested with a relative majority. That is, he would need at least the popular vote and the unthinkable abstention or even the support of Vox.
From there, only an unlikely rupture of bloc discipline could open the door to a tripartite coalition government, with a majority in Parliament. But for that to happen, a disaster would have to occur in the nationalist space. A bankruptcy that also weakened one of the two main formations, although without strengthening the other too much.
Is that possible? Some studies do not rule it out. For example, unlike Euskadi, in Catalonia the indicators of the current Government are not good. According to the Ipsos survey for La Vanguardia, up to 64% of those consulted suspend their management. And, in parallel, 77% (and even more than half of ERC voters) yearn for a replacement at the head of the Generalitat.
In this context, Carles Puigdemont could break the tie with an Esquerra worn down by his government action. Good proof of this is that those who voted in 2021 for Pere Aragonès express today, according to Ipsos, a weak preference for the ERC candidate as the new president (his support reaches barely 30%, while 16% opt for Puigdemont and a rate similar by Illa).
The former president’s problem is that he bears his own wear and tear after three calls asking for a vote for a return that never happened. Hence his level of disapproval is one of the highest (70% according to Ipsos and almost 50% according to the CEO). Of course, he has the unconditional approval of his followers (up to 90%) and a significant portion (between 40% and 70%) of the rest of the voters in the independence space.
The eventual transfer of votes from ERC and the CUP to Junts (which, according to the polls, would not go much further than the 10% of the vote that both formations garnered in 2021) would allow Puigdemont to shorten distances with Illa, but not necessarily gather a absolute pro-independence majority due to the simultaneous emptying of its direct competitors. And that is without counting the electoral impact of the Aliança Catalana of the ultranationalist Sílvia Orriols. In short, the dilemma between change and continuity presents in Catalonia a physiognomy of blockage that could only be broken by a powerful underlying movement that, for now, the polls do not reveal either.
