Even with the hangover from the Catalan elections, next week a new electoral campaign begins, this time now, with the direct participation of the Valencian parties that have drawn lessons from Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia in recent months. The European elections on June 9 have great conditions this time. On the one hand, in a climate of high tension and polarization, the call will have a clear national component that, in addition, in the Valencian political arena, will serve to calibrate the first year of Carlos Mazón’s mandate (together with Vox) at the head of the Presidency of the Generalitat.
All of this passed through the sieve of elections with special behavior on the part of the voters. And the European elections have special characteristics that change the way Valencians vote.
To begin with, despite the fact that Valencia is one of the autonomous communities in Spain with the highest electoral participation on the state map, in the European elections, the feeling that these are distant elections prevails. Thus, in 2014 the participation in the Valencian Community was 49% and in 2009, 52.8%. In the last ones there was an increase in participation to 62.5%, given that they coincided with the municipal elections (although not with the regional elections since the then president of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig, decided to bring them forward to make them coincide with the April general elections). .
This year, participation is expected to be in the high range, given that the PP wants to turn the European event into a second round of the general elections. The popular Valencians are encouraged after the surge in the Catalans and believe that the upward trend (the absolute majority has already been maintained in Galicia despite some bad polls) can be sold as support for the first year of Mazón’s management. The socialists have also recovered their vigor after the five days of heart attack that the PSOE experienced and, in particular, the PSPV, very dependent on Pedro Sánchez after its internal renewal process.
After the Catalans, this week a socialist leader predicted that the Europeans will do better than expected and that the famous five days have been good for them.
And the thing is that, as a general rule, these types of elections are favored by the large national parties. It was already seen in 2019 when up to five elections (municipal, regional, European and two general) coincided in just half a year. The Valencian socialists achieved their best result of the five elections in the elections to the European Parliament with 33.2% of the support. In fact, this percentage of support is the highest achieved by the fist and rose brand in the Valencian Community since 2009.
The European elections did not go badly for the PP four years ago either. They achieved 22.8% at a delicate moment in which Ciudadanos (although it is hard to believe now) was getting dangerously close. The data of the popular ones in the European elections in May is lower than that achieved that same day in the municipal elections (it must be taken into account that the formation usually presents lists in all the municipalities of the autonomy), but it was already better than the result of the general and regional elections in April.
That is why it can be said that these elections serve to concentrate the vote in the big parties, always with caveats, since the vote for PSOE and PP depends largely on the strength of their direct competitors; At that time Unides Podem and Compromís (on the left flank) and Ciudadanos and, to a lesser extent, Vox (on the right).
On the other hand, in the European elections parties like Compromís are losing steam and it does not seem that the grudging agreement with Sumar is going to mobilize much of the nationalist electorate. In 2014, the Valencian coalition achieved 8.1% of the votes (139,863 ballots) and, in 2019, 8.4% (193,506), far from its numbers in regional and local elections.
The call to the European Parliament also allows for a certain vote of punishment, of anger. For this reason, in the 2014 event, in his first encounter with the polls, a young Pablo Iglesias achieved 8.4% of the vote for Podemos in the Community (three tenths of his good state result) and that he had the competition direct from Compromís, which in that call obtained one MEP.
Along these lines, the result that Vox may have is unknown, in a growing climate of the extreme right throughout Europe. By the way, the ultra party can also be evaluated for its first year in the shared government of the Generalitat, trying to distance itself from the PP on sensitive issues for its electorate.
For Vox, as a national party, the single constituency does not harm it (the ghost of the useful vote disappears) and the low participation can give more weight to the loyal votes. Already in 2019, it achieved 7.29% (almost doubling the local vote that occurred that same day), although it is true that in the regional elections a month before it reached 10.67%. Abascal’s formation has resisted in Catalonia and despite the forecasts it seems that it is still going to put up a lot of war.
