Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

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Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

Postby xionSoyYo » Fri Sep 09, 2016 6:12 pm

So, back in November 2015 we had two things clear: first of all, Ciudadanos, the centre-right party which everybody seemed to love, was going to give Podemos (and possibly also the two major parties) a great blow, and it was going to form a right-wing coalition with the PP, or a 'centrist' one with the PSOE.

However, election day came and Ciudadanos fell some 8+ points short of what it was expected, and although the conservative party (PP) came slightly ahead of what pollsters predicted, the great winner of that December 20th election was undoubtedly Podemos (not because it won, but because it managed to enter in a virtual tie with the PSOE, and beat ciudadanos, really badly). However, this meant one thing: Neither the left nor the right were able to form a majority, so after a couple of months and two failed attempts by the socialists to form a government... fresh elections!

This time polls showed that both PP and Unidos Podemos (an alliance between Podemos, United Left and other forces) would beat the PSOE and reach 24-26% of the votes, and that PSOE and Unidos Podemos could even reach a majority by themselves, or with the support of a small regionalist party called PNV. However, Unidos Podemos didn't beat the PSOE, had 'only' 21.1% of the vote, and this time the great winner was... a (possibly) drunk Mariano Rajoy. yet, with Ciudadanos losing almost 10 seats, the right came short (again) of a majority, and the left fell below their 20-D results (thanks to the PSOE losing 5 seats).

And now, the gridlock continues, and there are serious articles talking about how to avoid... a fourth election.

We might not reach +500 days without government, as Belgium did, but Spain has something in the law that Belgium hasn't: Spain celebrates elections automatically when no government is formed. And do you know when the next election will take place if no government is formed? On christmas day.

Next time my fellow americans critizise their congress for 'not doing nothing' on christmas dinner, remember the thousands of spaniards that can't go with their families thet very same day because they are counting the votes.
Last edited by xionSoyYo on Fri Sep 16, 2016 11:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

Postby Aquinas » Fri Sep 09, 2016 9:19 pm

Going a little off-topic, but as a Liberal Democrat member from the UK, this makes me wonder about my party's passion for proportional representation. Could it be that majoritarian systems have significant advantages, in terms of being more likely to deliver stable government?
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Re: Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

Postby Siggon Kristov » Fri Sep 09, 2016 9:46 pm

Aquinas wrote:Going a little off-topic, but as a Liberal Democrat member from the UK, this makes me wonder about my party's passion for proportional representation. Could it be that majoritarian systems have significant advantages, in terms of being more likely to deliver stable government?

I don't know if you recall, about 2 years ago, I asked you if you wanted to join a small think tank to discuss issues about Jamaica's election system (which we took from the UK); I invited you because you were from the Commonwealth as well.

I have since written a general paper on the topic of electoral reform, and I have a section dedicated to discussing the advantages and disadvantages of first-past-the-post (what you call a majoritarian system) and proportional representation. In the paper, I spoke of the UK and its 2015 election.

I don't know if anyone is interested in reading it. If so, they can privately message me.
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Re: Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

Postby xionSoyYo » Fri Sep 09, 2016 9:57 pm

Aquinas wrote:Going a little off-topic, but as a Liberal Democrat member from the UK, this makes me wonder about my party's passion for proportional representation. Could it be that majoritarian systems have significant advantages, in terms of being more likely to deliver stable government?


Well, Spain's system is kinda proportional, but by no means proportional at all. Indeed, with a single constituency, the left would have archieved a majority in the first election. So you can feel fine, your party is on the right side of history :P

And Spain's problem was not that, it was a mix of these three problems:

1. Spain is no Germany

Support for a 'grand coalition' between PP and PSOE (with or without C's) is in the single digits among PSOE voters, and the socialists face fierce opposition from Podemos, which fell short of only 1 point of passing them, which means the PSOE can't support the PP without falling to third force, and possibly dissapearing PASOK-style. (We've got a word for this in Spain, coined after PASOK's historic defeat in 2012, called 'Pasokización')

2. Spain has 350 MP's... But some don't count

No, it's not that there are some 'second-class MP's' or something like that; but the PP has refused even trying to gather the support from independentist parties (PDC, ERC, EHBildu) which have, combined 20 seats (ERC and EHBildu are left-wing anyways, but PDC used to be a reliable support for both PP and PSOE) and Ciudadanos extended that veto to PNV, even though they are not independentists, which adds for another 5 seats. As you can see, the right has refused to gather the support from 25 MP's, 13 of them are, indeed, conservatives (PDC) or liberals (PNV).

And the left? Podemos has no vetoes imposed on any nationalist party, but the PSOE imposes vetoes on EHBildu, ERC and PDC, losing some 20 seats. For you to see how stupid this is, PSOE (85)+Unidos Podemos (71)+ERC(10)+PDC(8)+EHB(2) = 176!

3. Our system is designed for two parties, not 4

It's clear that we can't continue with this absurd system, where you need more 'yes' than 'no' votes on the opening session, that automatically calls for elections when there is no government... The best solution, in my view, would be to elect directly the president, in a two-round system similar to the french one (but with proportional representation in congress). Yet, PP and C's consider the constitution is sacred, and they don't want to change it, as Podemos proposed it first (or else I can't understand it). But this leaves us with an additional problem: our constitution was designed to be HIPER HERMETIC. It's impossible for me to describe how difficult it can be to change certain aspects, but it basically involves: Elections, 2 votings in which more than 2/3 of parliament must vote FOR the change, and then the senate, a national referendum, elections again, 2/3 again in comgress, and then the senate again...

So, basically, we're f*cked -_o_-
Last edited by xionSoyYo on Fri Sep 09, 2016 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

Postby Doc » Fri Sep 09, 2016 9:58 pm

Aquinas wrote:Going a little off-topic, but as a Liberal Democrat member from the UK, this makes me wonder about my party's passion for proportional representation. Could it be that majoritarian systems have significant advantages, in terms of being more likely to deliver stable government?


Majoritarianism has disadvantages though. There is, as you say the stability of the government. The winner of elections is pretty easy to uncover. But on the flipside, if you are one of the losers, you live without much input into the Government until the next election. At least with PR, you can be a tiny Party and still hope, to some degree, to be part of the Government. And little Parties, (often like a socialist or a libertarian Party, though it more about size than about ideology) has almost no chance of ever getting elected in a majoritarian, FFP system.

Its a trade off.
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Re: Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

Postby xionSoyYo » Thu Sep 29, 2016 11:11 am

Coup d'etat within the PSOE, it seems we are seriously heading towards third elections in a row now.

For more info about what the f*ck is happening withing the PSOE: here, here, and here
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Re: Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

Postby Aquinas » Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:26 am

BBC NEWS: Spain's Socialists vote to allow Rajoy minority government

Any thoughts on how successful this is likely to be?
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Re: Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

Postby Kubrick » Mon Oct 24, 2016 8:34 pm

It will govern but that's about it. Not enough support to get big things done, even for small scraps they'll have to broker deals with many smaller parties. I don't know, might just turn out to be a caretaker gov 2.0.
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Re: Spain emulates Belgium, stays 10 months without government

Postby SelucianCrusader » Mon Oct 24, 2016 10:02 pm

In Sweden we don't need this - they just form a government without a majority in the parliament anyway. :D

The parties in the current government only hold 37.8% of the legislature, but according to polls, it could even be bellow 30%.
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