Some books on the Spanish transition explain that Adolfo Suárez was tempted to implement a double-round electoral system, like that of France. Collaborators of President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing took it out of their minds, arguing that the system imposed by General De Gaulle on the French Republic was encouraging socialists and communists to go to the polls together (second round). “This would not be good for Spain”, they told him. Suárez’s team then came up with the current proportional electoral law, the gimmick of which is a strong prize for representation in the smallest rural provinces. With this law, UCD secured 165 seats in the first democratic elections of June 15, 1977.
Pedro Sánchez has now activated a peculiar second round in Spain. On July 23 there will be voting without prior elimination of contenders. Second round after municipal and regional elections that the right wanted to turn into a great political plebiscite against the president of the central government.
The last precedent could be found in the spring of 2019. Advised by Iván Redondo, Sánchez advanced the general elections to April of that year after the famous photo of Columbus (February), in which the three right-wing, Popular Party , Ciutadans and Vox, went together to the central Madrid square. After two months, in June, municipal, regional and European elections were held in one fell swoop, which went very well for the Socialist Party, to the point of introducing a risky fantasy into the mind of Pedro Sánchez: repeat the generals to expand results and get out of Unides Podemos. Albert Rivera and Pablo Iglesias, each with their own bets, contributed to that third round. The story is well known. The general elections were repeated (November 2019) and Sánchez had no choice but to agree with Podemos a correcuita, while Ciutadans crashed, facilitating the political resurrection of the Popular Party.
The turbulent legislature that is now concluding arose from that maneuver. Operation Colón, second part, was titled yesterday by Lola GarcÃa in the digital edition of La Vanguardia, to refer to the surprise announcement made yesterday morning by the President of the Spanish Government, after Sunday’s electoral fraud.
The call caught the Popular Party off guard, where plans were already being made for a six-month war of attrition, to arrive in December with the tenant of Moncloa literally burned by the pressure of the opposition, by the powerful army right-wing media, because of the internal problems that, with all certainty, were going to arise within the PSOE after the loss of seven autonomies; for the harsh exchange of reproaches between Sumar and Podemos after Sunday’s patacada, for the nervousness of the Republican Left after having lost 300,000 votes in the municipal elections in Catalonia. (The PSOE has lost 400,000 throughout Spain). And for the good results of EH Bildu in Euskadi and Navarre, with the consequent anxiety of the Basque Nationalist Party. Those on Carrer Génova had already ordered the grills to roast Sánchez over a slow fire between now and December.
It is enough to read the note issued yesterday by the FAES Foundation to capture the bad mood of who remains the main strategist of the Spanish right, José MarÃa Aznar. “The elections, the sooner the better”, declared Alberto Núñez Feijóo so he had recovered from the surprise.
The election call announced yesterday makes it difficult for the Popular Party to exploit the success. The results of 28- M, which deserve to be explored in great detail, are already history for the news accelerators: now only the July elections will be discussed. The focus of the 23-J will shine an intense light on the negotiations of the PP and Vox for the investiture of the regional leaders of the PP who must obtain the support of the extreme right to be able to govern the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, Aragon and Extremadura. These negotiations will occupy the foreground, unless the PP offers concertation pacts with the Socialist Party, which is quite unlikely.
The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has hurried the PP to reach agreements. For Vox, the elections have gone very well outside of Madrid. It has doubled the results obtained in the municipal elections of 2019. Vox is not in a downward spiral and will now fight hard for third position in the vast majority of provinces. This third position is very important in small constituencies, where there is no room for a fourth party.
And this challenges the damaged left of the left, which has paid dearly for its disunity. The Magariños event, in which it was loudly proclaimed that Yolanda DÃaz and Podemos did not agree, has had a demobilizing effect. Magariños was a serious mistake. They played to wear each other down and may have burdened the trust of thousands of voters in the space to the left of the PSOE, whatever the name it adopts or the candidate who heads it.
Sumar and Podemos have organized a mess that is beyond their capabilities, becoming the weak link in Spanish politics, something that attracts the attention of people who have read Lenin. Subjectivism was always a dominant trait in the old PCE. The possibility that the two parties agree must be quarantined.
Sánchez’s maneuver also tries to massively attract the vote of this sector in a face-to-face election. In 2008, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero left Esquerra Unida with two deputies.
