Elections are like an exam. You have to study a lot during the course to get a good grade, but in the last few days anything can disturb your mood and spoil the previous work. No matter how well a campaign is prepared, unforeseen events always arise that influence the meaning of the vote. This time, the cases of alleged vote buying, however isolated, have become a problem for the PSOE right in the final stretch. Mobilizing your electorate is usually a titanic task, but in these conditions even more so. The PP knows it and takes advantage of it. Alberto Núñez Feijóo yesterday spoke of expelling Pedro Sánchez for “electoral corruption”. Isabel DÃaz Ayuso went further and accused him of “stupidity”.
Put into perspective, the past few weeks have been dizzying and dizzying. Let’s see why.
Two months ago, Moncloa’s concern was its partners. The relentless battles between Podemos and Yolanda DÃaz predicted a defeat of the space of the radical left that could prevent the re-issue of regional and local governments, with special attention to the Valencian Community, which the PP pursues as a symbol of a resurrection in view of the December generals. DÃaz and Podemos knew how to curb their grudges and combine interests to face the campaign in better conditions. Meanwhile, the PSOE launched a “drip campaign” of announcements.
At each meeting, an announcement was then approved and published in the BOE, as Sánchez insisted. Measures and investments in health, education, young people, the elderly or women. The aim is to remind the left-wing electorate that this Government has not stopped worrying about it. The risk is to appear too interested and electoralist. Feijóo went to tow at first and even timidly signed up to compete with promises for young people’s access to housing. But in a society that voraciously consumes information, the impact of the ads was diluted.
The PP did not raise its voice until what they themselves assumed was an unexpected electoral story crossed their path: the inclusion in Bildu’s lists of 44 terrorists who had served sentences, of which seven had committed crimes of blood It wasn’t the first time it happened, but the PP focused its campaign on Sánchez’s alliances with Bildu. After a hesitant first few days, the president ended up coming out en masse against Feijóo, whom he reprimanded for the use of terrorism. According to the polls held by Moncloa, the PSOE cauterized any possibility of bleeding and it was Vox who profited from it. The differences between Feijóo and Isabel DÃaz Ayuso helped put the issue aside.
But the hare jumped in Melilla. The alleged buying of votes by the Coalition for Melilla (a PSOE split with good relations with Ãñigo Errejón’s party) shook the campaign. It was not the first time that this practice occurred in Melilla (there have even been convictions), but another case immediately arose in Mojácar (Almeria), which affected the PSOE.
To make matters worse, the secretary of the organization of the Andalusian socialists, Noel López, appears as the alleged instigator of the kidnapping of a councilwoman in a murky and outrageous matter. All this has uprooted the PSOE. And it will have effects. The crisis in the Andalusian dome will require another catharsis. Without a minimal recovery in the Andalusian barn the traffic towards the generals will be very uphill.
Leaders from Feijóo’s environment began by accusing Moncloa of leading “a plot to buy votes”, while the leader reserved a more institutional role: “I am sending a message of confidence in our electoral system. I ask more than ever that everyone goes to vote.” But yesterday Feijóo already accused Sánchez of putting democracy “for sale”. The PP has found in buying votes the cherry on top of the message that “sanchismo” needs to be expelled because now it even puts democracy at risk.
You know how to get into a campaign, but not how to get out. The reading of tomorrow’s results focuses on which regional and municipal governments the PSOE can retain or the PP win, in addition to the overall score (in number of votes and councillors), which helps to project general trends. All eyes are on communities such as Valencia, the Balearic Islands or Aragon. And in cities like Barcelona, ​​Seville and Valencia. The balance of power will once again tip towards one of the two sides.
