Spanish general election 2019: Popular Party pulverised
The Spanish general election of 2019 was a sensational defeat for the Popular Party, which achieved its worst ever election result.
They won only 66 seats, less than half of their 2016 total, and were nearly pushed into third place by the moderately conservative Citizens' Party. Their vote share plummeted from 32.57% to 16.7% and even their main rivals, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) have never polled that badly (their lowest total being 85 seats in 2016). This happened not only due to the increasingly authoritarian stance of Mariano Rajoy driving away moderate voters to the Citizens' Party, but also because the Vox (Latin for "voice") absorbed many of their most extreme conservative voters, despite Vox and the Popular Party both supporting stringent restrictions on abortion. Vox polled 10.26%, giving it 24 seats, not as significant an advance as pollsters predicted following its result in Andalusia last year. By contrast, the Citizens' Party won a total of 25 extra seats, giving it 57, meaning that the right-wing nationalist populist base is actually not as strong in Spain as it is in most of Europe; the moderate pro-European "liberal conservative" base is clearly larger.
The left-wing Podemos coalition also took a significant hit in this election, dropping from 71 seats to 42 leaving it in fourth place behind the Citizens' Party. Disunity within the Unidas Podemos (United We Can) alliance has become more problematic amongst progressive forces in Spain and regional left-wing nationalists similar to those of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) have been gaining ground instead, inspired by Catalonia's struggle for independence from Spain which Madrid has ruthlessly suppressed. One regionalist party tied to Podemos, En Marea, by contrast lost all five of its seats in Galicia. Furthermore, PSOE, briefly in danger of being displaced by Podemos in the same way PASOK has been displaced by Syriza in Greece, recovered some credibility following its ousting of Mariano Rajoy in 2018, installing Pedro Sanchez as Prime Minister of a coalition government, and this initial honeymoon period has caused some Podemos voters to return to the PSOE fold for now. PSOE nevertheless only increased its seat total to 123, 53 seats short of an overall majority, and will have to work with Podemos and regionalist parties to govern. Since 1977, there have been no fewer than seven occasions where either the PP or PSOE has had either enough seats for a single-party majority or to rule effectively as a minority government alone with only confidence and supply deals from another small party. The days of single-party governance of any sort are over in Spain for the foreseeable future.
Of the regionalist parties, the Republican Left of Catalonia unsurprisingly performed best, with 15 seats; both Basque regionalist parties also won extra seats, as did the Canarian Coalition, Regionalist Party of Cantabria, and the left-wing Valencian Compromis bloc. By contrast the liberal and centrist Together for Catalonia lost a seat. Regionalist parties now have as many as 38 seats in the Congress of Deputies; it is clear that the issue of Catalonian independence indirectly boosted support for regionalist parties of all types in Spain; nevertheless Madrid continues to exercise political dominance in Spain and indeed all of the leaders of Spain's five largest political parties ran for seats in the Spanish capital.
The Senate results were even more illustrative of how politics had shifted. Each region of Spain elects four senators by proportional representation irrespective of population in the same way each state of the USA elects two senators irrespective of population, with the exceptions of small islands and the overseas territories of Ceuta and Melilla. Even after taking into consideration regional legislatures' appointments, the PSOE won a majority of 13 in the Spanish Senate. PP were reduced to just 75 Senators, which was not only a consequence of the less proportional system but also from anger at the Senate's 2017 decision to remove Catalonian leader Carles Puigdemont from office and install direct rule from Madrid (this specific power is not available to the Congress of Deputies); Carles is still living in Belgium at present. Podemos performed even worse in the Senate election, losing all their directly elected Senators and retaining representation only via their six regionally appointed representatives. The Citizens Party won Senate seats for the first time but Vox did not, although one was regionally appointed. On the conservative side of Spanish politics, only the Sum Navarre coalition, led by the Navarrese People's Union, had any success, trebling its representation in the Spanish Senate.
Virtually all other parties in Spain received less than 0.5% of the vote apiece, with the exception of the Animalist Party against the Mistreatment of Animals which polled 1.25%. More regional parties than ever before entered but the majority barely registered in election results, even within the context of their respective region. The wooden spoon of the 2019 Spanish general election goes to Union of Everyone, which polled 28 votes; even with only one list submitted that is a truly derisory vote. In fact it is the lowest vote ever polled by any Spanish political party in the modern democratic era of Spain (i.e. from 1977 onwards).
The continued fragmentation of two party dominance as well as the PSOE's success in ousting PP before its term had even finished led to turnout rising to above 75% for the first time since 2005, as well as a decrease in blank votes to just 7,128; surprisingly the number of invalid votes (not to be confused with votes deliberately left blank to indicate a none of the above vote) markedly increased to as high as 275,410. Regional parties will play a critical role in the next Spanish government, which will have implications for Catalonian rights in particular, albeit in a more positive way than under Mariano's tenure.
They won only 66 seats, less than half of their 2016 total, and were nearly pushed into third place by the moderately conservative Citizens' Party. Their vote share plummeted from 32.57% to 16.7% and even their main rivals, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) have never polled that badly (their lowest total being 85 seats in 2016). This happened not only due to the increasingly authoritarian stance of Mariano Rajoy driving away moderate voters to the Citizens' Party, but also because the Vox (Latin for "voice") absorbed many of their most extreme conservative voters, despite Vox and the Popular Party both supporting stringent restrictions on abortion. Vox polled 10.26%, giving it 24 seats, not as significant an advance as pollsters predicted following its result in Andalusia last year. By contrast, the Citizens' Party won a total of 25 extra seats, giving it 57, meaning that the right-wing nationalist populist base is actually not as strong in Spain as it is in most of Europe; the moderate pro-European "liberal conservative" base is clearly larger.
The left-wing Podemos coalition also took a significant hit in this election, dropping from 71 seats to 42 leaving it in fourth place behind the Citizens' Party. Disunity within the Unidas Podemos (United We Can) alliance has become more problematic amongst progressive forces in Spain and regional left-wing nationalists similar to those of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) have been gaining ground instead, inspired by Catalonia's struggle for independence from Spain which Madrid has ruthlessly suppressed. One regionalist party tied to Podemos, En Marea, by contrast lost all five of its seats in Galicia. Furthermore, PSOE, briefly in danger of being displaced by Podemos in the same way PASOK has been displaced by Syriza in Greece, recovered some credibility following its ousting of Mariano Rajoy in 2018, installing Pedro Sanchez as Prime Minister of a coalition government, and this initial honeymoon period has caused some Podemos voters to return to the PSOE fold for now. PSOE nevertheless only increased its seat total to 123, 53 seats short of an overall majority, and will have to work with Podemos and regionalist parties to govern. Since 1977, there have been no fewer than seven occasions where either the PP or PSOE has had either enough seats for a single-party majority or to rule effectively as a minority government alone with only confidence and supply deals from another small party. The days of single-party governance of any sort are over in Spain for the foreseeable future.
Of the regionalist parties, the Republican Left of Catalonia unsurprisingly performed best, with 15 seats; both Basque regionalist parties also won extra seats, as did the Canarian Coalition, Regionalist Party of Cantabria, and the left-wing Valencian Compromis bloc. By contrast the liberal and centrist Together for Catalonia lost a seat. Regionalist parties now have as many as 38 seats in the Congress of Deputies; it is clear that the issue of Catalonian independence indirectly boosted support for regionalist parties of all types in Spain; nevertheless Madrid continues to exercise political dominance in Spain and indeed all of the leaders of Spain's five largest political parties ran for seats in the Spanish capital.
The Senate results were even more illustrative of how politics had shifted. Each region of Spain elects four senators by proportional representation irrespective of population in the same way each state of the USA elects two senators irrespective of population, with the exceptions of small islands and the overseas territories of Ceuta and Melilla. Even after taking into consideration regional legislatures' appointments, the PSOE won a majority of 13 in the Spanish Senate. PP were reduced to just 75 Senators, which was not only a consequence of the less proportional system but also from anger at the Senate's 2017 decision to remove Catalonian leader Carles Puigdemont from office and install direct rule from Madrid (this specific power is not available to the Congress of Deputies); Carles is still living in Belgium at present. Podemos performed even worse in the Senate election, losing all their directly elected Senators and retaining representation only via their six regionally appointed representatives. The Citizens Party won Senate seats for the first time but Vox did not, although one was regionally appointed. On the conservative side of Spanish politics, only the Sum Navarre coalition, led by the Navarrese People's Union, had any success, trebling its representation in the Spanish Senate.
Virtually all other parties in Spain received less than 0.5% of the vote apiece, with the exception of the Animalist Party against the Mistreatment of Animals which polled 1.25%. More regional parties than ever before entered but the majority barely registered in election results, even within the context of their respective region. The wooden spoon of the 2019 Spanish general election goes to Union of Everyone, which polled 28 votes; even with only one list submitted that is a truly derisory vote. In fact it is the lowest vote ever polled by any Spanish political party in the modern democratic era of Spain (i.e. from 1977 onwards).
The continued fragmentation of two party dominance as well as the PSOE's success in ousting PP before its term had even finished led to turnout rising to above 75% for the first time since 2005, as well as a decrease in blank votes to just 7,128; surprisingly the number of invalid votes (not to be confused with votes deliberately left blank to indicate a none of the above vote) markedly increased to as high as 275,410. Regional parties will play a critical role in the next Spanish government, which will have implications for Catalonian rights in particular, albeit in a more positive way than under Mariano's tenure.
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