Another undoing of the waning right-wing, as Vox now calls it, would be very good for the populists in terms of seats, but also insufficient in the essential part, the ability to form a government. As the transfers of deputies would be mostly within the conservative bloc, the PP, the “cowardly right” that the ultra Santiago Abascal called it, would continue to be unable to build a parliamentary majority, neither with Vox and the support of the regionalists from the Canary Islands and Navarre, nor with these two forces and the GNP.
What effect would another Vox downgrade have on the majority game in Congress in an electoral repeat? This is the big question raised by the crisis, brewing for some time, which erupted strongly just after 23-J with the departure from politics of one of the founders of the party most recognizable by public opinion, the until now spokesman Iván Espinosa de los Monteros.
Faced with this unknown, three possible scenarios emerge for the eventual result of Vox, which on 23-J took 12.4% of the votes, after dropping 2.7 points compared to 2019. The high scenario is that this is repeated same decline and remained at 9.7% of the votes. On the downside, it would suffer a fall equivalent to that of Ciutadans in November 2019 and would reach 5.3%. At the midpoint, the blowout would not be intense, and would only drop to 7.5% of the vote.
The bloc of the right, of the PP and Vox, would not advance in deputies in any of the three scenarios. Only in the upper one would I keep the 170, while in the others I would give up between five and three. Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party would increase between 13 and 24 seats, from 137 in July. Even so, with this maximum of 161, there would still be seven or eight to be invested as President of the Government with the votes of the PNB, CC and UPN.
In November 2019, the fragmentation of the right and the weakness of the first party at the time, the PSOE, contributed to Vox achieving a great return on its votes, since it almost won the seats that belonged to it proportionally. The fundamental variable of the Spanish electoral system had a great influence, what can be called the Godzilla effect, the Japanese monster of size is indeed important. With their 15%, Abascal’s were untouchable.
On 23-J they lost this condition, as they lost 2.7 points. It was very expensive for them. The 19 deputies who gave in represent just double that, 5.4% of Congress. However, with that 12.4%, the electoral system was nowhere near as cruel as it will be if it continues to drop, because it will no longer be a medium-sized party in Spain, and will become a small one , as were once IU, CDS and the last one, Ciutadans, subject to large penalties. If the 23-J Vox obtained 76% of the seats that would actually be theirs, with the 20 deputies on the upper stage, this percentage would be reduced to 59%.
With its combination of a multitude of constituencies that provide few seats and the D’Hondt method, the Spanish electoral system is like an elevator that accelerates as it descends. Godzilla rules. The little ones have a very bad life. In the average scenario, with 7.5% of the votes, Vox would only have 13 seats, half of which would correspond to it. And on the low stage, with 5.3% of the votes, Abascal would only have five colleagues. They would occupy 1.7% of the seats in the chamber, a third below what they would have if there were no distortions when votes are cast for seats.
This increasingly accelerated reduction dynamic as Vox falls from 12% and towards 5% has its correlate in the increases of the PP, which are reinforced passing from 35% and would begin to approach 40%, in both extreme scenarios. In the interim is where the PSOE benefits the most, as it gains five seats. In all cases there would be a victim, Junts, since the PP would take away the deputy for Girona that it did not take away with the external vote.
These are, in any case, hypothetical scenarios, drawn up without changing the geographical profile of the PP and Vox and with the premise that the populars would get 74% of what the ultras conceded, which is the highest figure in the transfer tables of voting from the daily polls of 40dB, the company of Belén Barreiro. The specific data are estimates, but with a clear trend, the Vox crisis by itself would not be enough to topple Feijóo.
