In the first part of this two pieces analysis on electoral behaviour, I asked what is the Right's strategy to counteract the natural left-wing majority in Spain. That is the analysis I try to present here extracted from a piece by Basilio Baltasar in El Pais newspaper.
Baltasar argues that the Right in Spain isn't concerned anymore with the formal political process but rather to wave the flag of a new anti-politics populism that undermines the prestige of public institutions.
He argues that PP is encouraging a movement based on the questioning of the judicial power and the encouragement of popular suspicion not based in the idea of reasonable doubt but rather in information manipulation and the politicisation of naturally independent institutions. The continous request for further evidence in the Madrid bombings case, although a court rule has been completed, is a great example of this strategy by PP. This way PP installs a natural suspicion in the population that starts questioning the most basic democratic institutions in the State and polluting the normal development of the rule of law.
Furthermore, Baltasar argues, the Right has taken on this strategy because they realise the State, which once they use to control, is escaping them. The State today oversees their business activity, questions religious values being mixed with its rule and promotes further social rights for the lower classes. It is reason that governs today through the rule of law and a State founded in the principles inherited from European Enlightment, and therefore takes away from the Right their ability to control and manipulate as it pleases.
PP and its allies don't want to have to go through State oversights to achieve their goals, they don't want to have checks and balances because that limits their actions and they remember days when that wasn't necessary.
This is the strategy of the Right today to protect itself from a PSOE Government in 2008. Their aim is to create a wave of popular political apathy and to question the legitimacy of state institutions so in the chaos they can continue working without oversight. That is what PP's strategy has been for the last four years. The only hope for many is a new leadership, a more liberal and democratically-inspired leadership. A leadership that gets PP back into the democratic process and stops this movement that so much damage has already inflicted to the Constitutional consensus that all political forces achieved in 1978 and has taken Spain to where it is today.
Showing posts with label electoral behaviour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electoral behaviour. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Saturday, 1 December 2007
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
