A handful of votes in key places will define the political map on 28-M

The polls will decide from tonight the governments of 12 autonomous communities and 8,087 municipalities after a particularly atypical campaign that, for several days, has been counted from the events section. Representatives of different parties have given a lot of work to the security forces. The president of the Diputación de Ourense and the provincial PP, José Manuel Baltar, put the official car on a Sunday at 215 kilometers per hour; the husband of a former PP candidate in Pulianas (Granada) turned himself in to the police after running over the husband of another PSOE candidate; three socialist charges have been pointed out for the kidnapping of a councilor of the same party in Maracena (Granada); a candidate of Vox, Ana González Martínez, mayor in the City Council of Parla (Madrid), was forced to resign after being arrested in an anti-drug operation; a socialist candidate, a former member of the Latin King, resigned from his position on the list to the City Council of Valencia after being arrested – the party claims that he was the victim of a false complaint; 10 people, including two socialist candidates, are being investigated for alleged vote-buying in Mojácar (Almería); another 10 were arrested for the same thing in Melilla, including a councillor – already dismissed – of the Coalition for Melilla; three PSOE candidates were arrested on suspicion of electoral fraud in Albudeite (Murcia) and the Socialists accuse the PP of manipulating and coercing the vote in half a dozen municipalities.

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Direct 28M elections: voting, participation, polls, recount and results

The weight of the undecided

These are atypical elections, according to experts consulted by EL PAÍS, especially because they are very close. "It may seem that there is little change," says the doctor in Political Science, Sociology and Social Anthropology Belén Barreiro, director of the research agency 40dB., "but there are places where everything is caught by the hair, governments that can fall on one side or the other, such as the Valencian Community or the city of Seville. There are more nerves, more tension than other times." José Pablo Ferrándiz, director of Political Studies at Ipsos Spain, believes that "the key to differentiating these elections is the great competitiveness." "I don't remember such a close campaign, with so many places up in the air. Before, uncertainty was very localized. Now there are doubts in the City Council of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, the Generalitat Valenciana ... and we cannot rule out changes in Castilla-La Mancha, in Aragon...".

The undecided of the final stretch of the campaign will be key. "The paradigmatic case," adds Ferrándiz, "is Barcelona, where there is a triple tie [between Ada Colau (Barcelona en Comú); Jaume Collboni (PSC) and Xavier Trias (Junts)] and some 200,000 Barcelonans who will decide their vote at the last moment, while in Madrid they are only 6% of the electorate". Barreiro agrees: "The undecided can tip the balance one way or the other, or not go to vote and unbalance the forecasts. We will have to see how much the vote-buying scandals weigh in the final stretch."

National story

For Ferrándiz, who believes that in these elections the cycle of upward participation unleashed by 15-M and the multi-party system will conclude, "the campaign has been long for the PSOE because the issues that have monopolized it have not been favorable to its agenda [the presence of those convicted of links with terrorism in the lists of EH Bildu and cases of electoral fraud] and because it is difficult for them to mobilize their people. Sanchez looked on social Tuesdays, ads... not so much influencing the vote as annulling the communication of the rival and the PP has lengthened the issue of ETA not so much to mobilize its electorate as to generate doubts in the socialist voter. And in that sense, discouragement is perceived, there is more indecision in the left-wing electorate than in the right-wing electorate."

02:53

Feijóo to Sánchez: "He has been crueler with the PP than with Bildu"

For political scientist Lluís Orriols, the key to the campaign has been "the high degree of nationalization." "There always is, but in these regional and municipal elections it has reached maximums. The PSOE used the weapon of the Government, social policies from the Council of Ministers; the PP, the lists of Bildu. They only present themselves in a part of the territory, but the popular know that the partners of the Government bother many socialist voters and have not released that trump card. A week after the Bildu lists were known, the CIS showed that the PP had neutralized the PSOE's ability to mobilize."

Barreiro agrees that the photo of the campaign "has been very nationalized, with debates that had more to do with general ones and that will condition the interpretation of the results, which will also be done in a very national key." "A few votes in autonomies and cities," adds Orriols, "can change the national narrative about how the country is in general, whether or not a change of cycle is coming. That's why they're so nervous and why they've nationalized the campaign so much."

The battle of the story will start on Sunday night, when it is likely that the passage through the polls will not serve to answer emphatically the simplest question: who has won. The rupture of the two-party system imposed a policy of blocs, that is, of pacts; The winning brand is no longer always the one that manages to rule. While the agreements are being negotiated, there are other parameters to indicate the winner, but Ferrándiz warns, for example, that the aphorism that "whoever gets more votes in the municipal elections wins in the general elections" is just that: "an aphorism." "There is a tendency to interpret these elections as if they were average, American, but there are many factors. In 2007, the PP won the municipal elections with 155,000 votes more than the PSOE and in 2008, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero reissued his Government with a million votes ahead of the PP.

The death of Ciudadanos and the consolidation of Vox

It is certain that the PP will improve its results at the municipal level due to the disappearance of one of its competitors. "Citizens is like dead stars. We continue to see his reflection, but he died a long time ago," says Ferrándiz. Barreiro agrees: "In the global calculation, the PP starts with that great advantage of the recomposition of its space. What was divided between three, is now divided into two." Vox, point out the experts consulted, resists the so-called Feijóo effect. Ferrándiz admits that he has been surprised by the resistance of the party led by Santiago Abascal. "I thought that the failure of the motion of censure would take its toll, but we have detected how they recovered a part of the voters who were leaving or returning to the PP." "A new element of this electoral cycle," adds Orriols, "is that Vox has moved into a phase of consolidation. Now he wants to touch power and he's going to push much harder to get into governments."

Quicksand on the left

Another key to the campaign and possible post-electoral pacts is the complicated political ecosystem to the left of the PSOE. Barreiro describes it as "quicksand." "There is such a fragmentation of brands and acronyms that there are people who are not clear who is who. In the surveys we have had to make an effort to clarify it well. Because of that division and the electoral barriers, I think that space is not going to go well and they will have to reflect for the general elections." Orriols agrees: "We have assumed something exotic, that Yolanda Díaz campaigns for some parties and for others, when these elections should have been the opportunity to crystallize that space a few months before the general elections." For Ferrándiz, Diaz also plays a lot this Sunday. "Although Sumar has not presented himself, if the emotional climate that is imposed is that of defeat of the left, it will cost him more to launch his project. On the other hand, Podemos and Sumar are condemned to understand each other, to swallow frogs in the negotiation for the generals, or both will fail. And they will also have to conceal, in addition, a little better than until now their discomfort because it is necessary that this unity be credible and that it does not occur at the last moment. "

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The left bloc would lose 14 seats if Podemos and Sumar ran separately

During campaign rallies, Podemos has criticized some of the brands that have already joined Sumar, which it defines as "the cuqui left." The candidate of More Madrid to the presidency of the Community, Mónica García, replied that this is "the framework used by Isabel Díaz Ayuso" and asked that the left stop "stepping on the scrubbed".

This morning a hurricane called @ionebelarra passed through Madrid and said four things about the cuqui left, the "noise" and the canvas with the face of the brother of the corrupt woman that we have hung on Goya Street. 🔥

Listen to her, listen to me. You won't see anything like it today. pic.twitter.com/rKcxhC279N

— Pablo Echenique (@PabloEchenique) May 21, 2023

Tension and "Trumpism"

For Orriols, the nationalization of the campaign has also caused it to be "more tense, with statements and departures of tone that surely would not have occurred if they had been approached as a strictly regional and municipal competition." In this sense, Ferrándiz warns of the "attempt to install Trumpism in Spain generating distrust, when the cases of vote buying are an anecdote, not the category, and the fact that they have been detected, the proof that the controls and the system work, although they can be improved. The next thing, especially if the PP wins the generals, but fails to govern, may be to question the legitimacy of the Government." Barreiro regrets that this climate of tension has displaced "the proposals" in key areas, such as education or health. "We slide down a slope of bad politics and that," warns the sociologist, "causes boredom in citizens." After accusing the leftist candidates of committing all the crimes of the Penal Code, Ayuso said on Friday, in his last rally: "Sánchez is going to leave as he arrived, with an attempt to pout."

01:57

Ayuso: "Sanchez will leave as he arrived: with an attempt to pout"

On Monday begins the unofficial campaign for the generals, which can be decisive for the continuity of both Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo. If Ayuso achieves an absolute majority, he will face the former Galician president and the Andalusian, the two men who divided the PP after overthrowing the first leader of the party elected in primaries, Pablo Casado. And if Feijóo fails to govern after the generals, the popular will have to decide if they grant another bullet to their president or if, as happened in February 2022, it is convenient to sacrifice him and bet on another horse: that of the Puerta del Sol.

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