The PP is awaiting whether the recount of the foreign vote, the so-called CERA vote, can allow them to add another three seats to their 136 deputies, one in Madrid that they would take from the PSOE, another in Girona that they would beat Junts and a last seat in Cantabria from Vox.
The recount of the vote of the residents absent from the elections on Sunday is therefore key for governability and the distribution of the blocks, because the PSOE could go back to 121 seats if the PP adds another in Madrid and Junts loses one of its seven representatives.
With the current distribution, the PP (136) plus Vox (33) add up to 169, to which could be added UPN (1) and the Canary Islands Coalition (1), which, however, has qualms with Vox. This hypothetical and complex sum would reach 171 seats, while the PSOE (122) with its partners (31 from Sumar, 7 from ERC, 6 from EH Bildu, 5 from PNV and 1 from BNG) would add 172, one above the other bloc. Junts would have the key to governance in abstention.
However, if the PP adds the Madrid seat, and counting on that hypothetical sum, the bloc on the right would be placed at 172 and the one on the left at 171. In this scenario, the PSOE would need Junts’ yes and not just his abstention, with which Junts could raise the price of their votes, even if the popular ones managed to add the Girona deputy that they would take from Junts. In this case, the possible sum of the space on the right could reach 173 compared to 171 for the bloc led by the PSOE.
In the PP they acknowledge that they are aware of how the last seats at stake are distributed, although sources in the leadership admit that it is not easy. According to popular sources, the PP is 1,700 votes away from wresting a seat in Madrid from the PSOE, a community in which the popular have achieved 40.51% of the votes and the foreign vote is very numerous, with a total of 375,602 voters called to the polls. This is the most probable seat because in this autonomy the popular ones clearly prevail.
In Cantabria, the PP would be 428 votes away from snatching a seat from Vox, although in this case the blocks would not move. In this community there are 41,182 voters abroad.
Finally, the popular ones depend on 363 votes to take a seat from Junts per Catalunya in Girona, where the PP currently has no representative and the voters with the right to vote abroad reach 23,993.
The CERA vote will begin to be counted as of this Friday, when the Provincial Electoral Boards will conclude the general scrutiny of the votes by including the ballots that the 2.3 million Spaniards residing in other countries and are registered in the Census of Absent Residents Abroad (CERA).
