The general elections of 23 July are an important occasion to become aware of the value of the useful vote to ensure that some central elements of democracy are not affected by the cultural battle between the right and the left that will affect the coexistence of Spaniards. The example of Catalonia allows us to observe the importance of the useful vote promoted by the PSC.
During the last ten years, the Catalans, one election after the other, have seen how the ideological offer of the PSC has been nuanced and has prevailed in aspects as relevant as enhancing the capacity for agreements with the majority of political forces or maintain social cohesion. The quality that defines the useful vote proposed by the PSC is not only of a political nature, based on voting for the party that has the best chance of winning and concentrating the vote there, but also transcends pre-political aspects, such as preserving the dialogue for power move forward and do politics.
The political agenda of the PSC deployed in Catalonia suggests that, if the formal aspects of democracy are undermined, even minimally, the ability to move forward from the agreement and without options to listen to what it has to say is destroyed the other side The PSC’s political successes have been achieved by appealing to coexistence, governability and institutional stability.
I take the example of the PSC because, perhaps without intending to, it has become an example for the rest of Spanish politics, by achieving that in Catalonia political stability is today a more beneficial electoral proposal than a food the instability The useful vote that the PSC has mobilized in Catalonia is the result not only of a party strategy, but also of the political successes obtained thanks to having become the necessary and indispensable interlocutor for all Catalan political forces.
The useful vote proposed by the PSC, led by Salvador Illa, recalls the political vision of Norberto Bobbio, based on adopting a way of reasoning that weighs the pros and cons, so that not all spaces are closed to the opposition of the other and the replication is not impossible.
