Difficult times are coming for non-state action parties (PANE), which is what political science calls nationalists and regionalists. The polls predict a blow for them. It would come after its historic record in the last generals, when they obtained 39 deputies from nine different parties. Now, according to La Vanguardia’s survey, there could be seven, with 29 deputies. With nuances and variations by party, there is a demographic consensus that places them around thirty seats. The drop could be explained by the very different political moment that Catalonia is experiencing and by the polarization between the big blocs.
The nationalists, who are the fundamental part, and the regionalists can be seen as a heterogeneous third block of Spanish politics. Not counting formations that had alliances at state level, of the 39 deputies elected in 2019, 35 were nationalists.
This internal composition leads to its great common denominator, the rejection of an eventual investiture of the PP with Vox, which, in this block, would only be supported by UPN if it enters and perhaps Coalició Canària. On the contrary, to a very different degree, there is a predisposition to agree with Pedro Sánchez.
The April 2019 election was an exceptional time for this blog. From the gap opened by the Regionalist Party of Cantabria (PRC) of Miguel Ángel Revilla, in the November revolution of the territorial vote, it was very close to an event even more spectacular than the entry into the Congress of Teruel Existeix. A Muslim party, moderate, Coalition for Melilla (CPM), now collapsed after the postal vote scandal in May, almost broke through for the first time. Well advanced in the counting, the only representative of this African city was still obtained, which in the end went to the PP for a little less than 200 ballots.
The 2021 regional elections in Castile and León were the second wake-up call for the provincial forces. As Terol Existeix had already done, Sória already defeated the PP and the PSOE in its marginalized territory. Under the brand of Espanya Buidada, the party from Soria, which arose from a social platform also inspired by the inhabitants of Teruel, called on the doors of Congress, as, with less power, did the Unió del Poble Leonès (UPL). With the flag of Lexit, to create autonomy for the kingdom of León, it reached 21% in the province in the autonomous elections and won in the capital.
The aggravation of the strong territorial inequalities, in favor of the Mediterranean and of Madrid that sucks everything, fueled all these forces. At the same time, the decline of Podemos boosted the recovery of the parties it had nurtured, such as the BNG, which managed to return to Congress, and Bildu, which grew to have its own group while the PNB retained its stable strength. But the essential factor in this historic record of November 2019 for non-state action parties was in Catalonia, right after the sentence of the Statute and with the prisoners leading the lists. With the entry of the two deputies from the CUP and the eight from Junts, plus the thirteen from ERC, they added 23 deputies, the historical maximum, as also happened with 6.8% of the votes, almost two points above the average since 1977.
With the notable reduction in tension after the pardons, the sharpening of pro-independence divisions and the blow to the ERC municipal elections, the perspectives are very different. In its survey for La Vanguardia, Ipsos indicates a sharp drop, as the Republicans would lose six seats, the CUP another and only Junts could gain one. In other polls, different distributions appear, especially in the struggle between ERC and Junts, but with some coincidence when the total is estimated for the 17 deputies, which is equivalent to the historical average.
After 37 years in Congress, first as Agrupacions Independents de les Canàrias and since 1993 as Coalició Canària (CC), this force is threatened to be left out, according to the polls, in which it frequently appears with or without its seat in doubt. Terol would also be threatened. The Unió del Poble Navarro (UPN) exists and is taken for granted while, after the fall of, the PRC does not even appear. In any case, the caution in front of general surveys advised by experience must be redoubled in the case of these forces.
Throughout the current democratic stage there were, in proportion to its size, sharp fluctuations in the strength of nationalists and regionalists, from 24 deputies in 1977 and 2008 to 38 in 2011 and 39 in 2019, while the percentage of the vote moved between 6.9% and 11.4%. In the era of blogs, the minimum occurred in 2016, just when one of these came closer to the absolute majority, a fact that could be cause and effect.
