Spanish politics is at war, and this very polarized debate, mainly about the Amnesty law, does not leave a clear winner with a view to the next general elections, according to the February barometer of the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) . The democratic institute dependent on the Spanish Government predicts a tie between the two major parties: the PP recovers one point compared to the survey of a month ago and would obtain 33.2% of the votes, while the PSOE moderates downward vote expectations from the previous poll and remains at 33%.
The poll, which does not assign seats, awards 10.2% of the votes to Sumar, which is consolidated as the third force, while Vox continues to fall and now registers 7.9%. The fifth force is Podemos, with 2.9%.
The barometer for February does not include the effects of the PP’s double turn of speech on the pardon of former president Carles Puigdemont, which they endorsed for a few hours over the weekend, since the field work was carried out between February 1 and 6, the first week of the Galician electoral campaign and in the midst of legal controversy precisely over whether Puigdemont can be charged with terrorism in the Democratic Tsunami case.
Where there are changes is in the struggle between the two major Catalan independence parties, with a clear victory for ERC, which in just one month achieves a spectacular recovery of 1.4% in the intention to vote in the January barometer , goes to 2.1% and is back in front of Junts.
The 4,000 interviews in the survey (569 in Catalonia) in the first week of February may be reflecting the effects of the Amnesty law negotiation between the PSOE and Junts. The post-convergents, identified with the delay in the approval of the law, suffer a loss of confidence from the Catalan electorate and remain at 1%, which is half a point less than just a month ago, when their prominence in the Spanish politics gave them 1.5% of the vote in the January barometer and they were a tenth ahead of the Republicans. Now ERC would double Junts’ result.
There are also changes in the ranking of the two Euskadi sovereignist parties. The PNB improves the results of January by two tenths and with 1% of the vote Bildu advances, which would now obtain 0.8%. As for the BNG, which the polls for Sunday’s Galician elections place in full swing, it registers no changes in the key of general elections, and the CIS maintains 0.7% of the vote.
The unknown, therefore, remains in the struggle between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, which the CIS does not clarify. The President of the Spanish Government remains the favorite of those surveyed to continue in Moncloa, although he suffers a clear setback compared to the January survey, when he had just formed a government: 30.4% who in January preferred him as president, it goes to 25.6%. The leader of the PP slightly improves his result from January and goes from 16.5% to the current 17.2%.
Consistently, Sánchez also sees his assessment lowered, in a group in which no one gets the pass. The president of the Spanish Government, who a month ago had a grade of 4.42 out of 10, now gets a 4.25. Feijóo goes from 4.16 in January to 4.18. And both of them are surpassed by the second vice-president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, with 4.27. Another indicator is the level of confidence, which is also low in the case of Sánchez: 68.5% say that he inspires little or no confidence in them. Feijóo also got the worst result here, since in its case it is 72.4%.
As in every monthly barometer, the CIS asks about the concerns of Spaniards. Economic problems are in first place, cited by 27.4%, followed by “political problems in general” and unemployment, both with 22.3%. Regarding Spain’s economic situation, less than a third of respondents (28.6%) rate it as good or very good, and 59.2% rate it as bad or very bad.
