Electoral behaviour in Spain- an analysis (I)

Left-wing parties across the globe have been undertaking in the last two decades what has been called ‘the journey to the centre’. Electoral behaviour theory tells us that a party has to conquer the ideological centre to win elections and power.

Cesar Molina founder of Multa Paucis, a Spanish public affairs consultancy, tell us this phenomenon is different in Spain. Here are the arguments:

Since the first democratic elections in Spain, the Left has always had between 2.3 and 3.5 million more votes than the Right. Only in the 2000 general election, won by PP with absolute majority, did the Right win more votes, 1 million more than the Left. The Left lost 2.7 million votes in comparison with the 1996 election. However of those 2.7 millions only 0.6 millions went to the Right, the remaining 2 millions simply abstained (the abstention rate in 2000 was the highest in history, 69%). This, Molina argues, shows that the real centrist voter accounts only for around 0.6 million people in Spain while the 2 millions are traditional left-wing voters that tend to abstain in certain circumstances. This atypical electoral behaviour has a precedent in history. In 1933, abstentionism by left-wing groups, anarchists in this case, gave the Right a victory while in 1936 that same group when to vote and the Left won the election.

In general terms this means that PSOE, the biggest left-wing party, always has a clear advantage to win general elections. However, the challenge for the party lies in that while the right-wing vote always goes to PP, the left-wing one is generally shared by PSOE and IU (United Left). Statistical analysis shows that for every 1% increase in voting PSOE benefits of 0.6% of that vote. But at the same time for every 1% of the vote that IU gets PSOE’s share goes down 1%. On the other hand the same analysis shows that electoral participation swings do not affect PP’s share of the vote. In other words, PP voters always vote while left-wing voters don’t always vote and they split their vote between two parties.
What are the conclusions according to Molina for the March 2008 general election? That if participation falls below 71% (in 2004 was 76%) and IU keeps their 4% share of the vote the election will be too closed to call. If IU’s share of the vote would go up to 6% PSOE would need a 74% participation to win.
This same analysis can be used to analyse the impact of the Catalan vote in March. After a series of transport and institutional crises in Catalonia, a fear of high abstentionism in the region is worrying PSOE strategists. If the vote in Catalonia falls below 64% (lowest in history in 2000) then PSOE would lose between 3 or 4 seats in Congress and would need a participation of 73% in the rest of the country to keep power.
The conclusion is that PSOE has a greater chance to win the election in March. However it is essential that it is able to mobilise the left-wing vote. The abstentionist left-wing vote stands ideologically more to the left than PSOE. However that same vote would rather see PSOE in power than PP hence why they vote for it when elections are too close. If PSOE is able to convince these voters of the crucial role they get to play this time around victory will be pretty safe in March.
What is PP doing to encourage the left-wing vote to stay at home? That is the content of my next piece.

P.S: This analysis fails to take into account the particularities of Spanish electoral law but I believe Molina rightly analyses the big picture which is very useful to understand electoral behaviour in Spain and its particularities compare to other Western democracies.