[Marxism] A summary of the Spanish electoral situation.

[David Picón Álvarez]

I have wanted to write this for a long time, but always kept postponing it. 
In some ways, I can now write it with all the relevant information.

The setup:

Spain is a parliamentary monarchy. The parliament is bicameral (Congress and 
Senate). The president of the government (which in other systems would be 
called prime minister) is proposed by the king (ceremonially, but even in 
law proposed by the president of Congress) and chosen by the Congress from 
one of its members. The president chooses a council of ministers which are 
not subject to parliamentary approval and which can be dismissed and 
introduced at his will. The senate plays no role in any of this.

Congress and Senate are chosen by very different mechanisms. Congress is 
chosen through a corrected system of proportional representation. More 
specifically, it is at present chosen through d'Hondt's method, although 
this can be changed without touching the constitution. As you may know, 
d'Hondt method is slightly biased in favour of big parties. The district is 
the province, which has its bad and good sides. As a good side, provinces 
are very stable, I don't think they have been significantly changed in the 
last 100 years, so political manipulation of the districts is not an issue. 
On the bad side, provinces are very arbitrary, and in fact very 
heterogeneous (some are hugely populated and some are tiny). The way to 
apportion seats to the provinces is a similar proportional representation 
deal, except that all provinces start out with a minimum of 2 seats, which 
overrepresents tiny provinces. Party lists must be voted in a block, they 
are in other words closed. One doesn't vote for candidates but for parties.

Senate is chosen through a completely different system, or rather, 2 
systems. The bulk of the Senate members (about 200 out of 250) are chosen at 
a rate of 4 per province, every province counts the same. The electors must 
cross up to 3 different names on the ballot, to indicate their support. The 
senators of the province are chosen by majority vote. What this means, if 
people don't break party affiliation (and up to 98% of the people vote for a 
solid senate list), is that the most voted party in the province gets 3 
senators and the second most voted gets the remaining one. Needless to say, 
this system is very corrected in favour of parties with majority support in 
certain territories, such as nationalists parties, or to big parties. The 
rest of the senate seats are chosen by the parliaments of the autonomous 
communities (something like German Länder, very roughly).

The role of the senate is minimal. It can almost always be overridden by 
Congress except in cases of constitutional change (which require very 
qualified majorities, 2/3 in Congress and at least absolute majority in 
Senate, depending on the character of the reform), and some issues to do 
with territorial matters.

The players:

PSOE. Partido socialista obrero español. This party was founded in the 19th 
century and is the oldest in existence in Spain. It was founded by Pablo 
Iglesias, a Marxist who also founded UGT, one of the 2 biggest labour 
unions. It obviously has an interesting history, but today it is what we 
could call a typical European social-democratic party. It abandoned Marxism 
in the 1980s, it came to power in the 80s with a promise to take us out of 
NATO, which they didn't fulfill. Yet it did many positive things such as 
giving penssions to people who worked in the home or whose employer never 
paid their social security when they became 65. It governed Spain from 1983 
until 1996, some of the time in minority, when the scandals of corruption, 
misuse of public funds and economic mismanagement made PP win the elections. 
In 2004 it got power back, probably in part (but not in whole!) thanks to 
their opposition to the Iraq war (which was opposed by about 95% of the 
people) and the government's mismanagement of the terrorist attack on the 
9th of March, a few days before the election, blaming it on ETA. For this 
elections PSOE brings a programme of keynesian social democracy: tax rebates 
of 400 EUR for all employees, self-employed workers and penssioners, a 
reduction in the wealth tax (impuesto sobre el patrimonio) and the like. 
Some of the things PSOE has done during this 4 years of government have 
been: a law that allows homosexual marriages and adoption by them, a law to 
try to combat domestic violence (which is so far proving useless), 
incentives for owners of empty flats to rent them and aid for young people 
to pay their rent, money for integration programmes for immigrants, a law of 
equality of men and women which is actually a positive discrimination law, 
etc. In 2004 it obtained 11026163 votes, constituting a 42.59% of the total, 
rendering 164/350 seats, a 46.85%, at a cost per seat of 67232 votes, you'll 
see the cost per seat varies *VERY SHARPLY* from party to party, and whom it 
hurts.

PP. Partido popular. This is a refoundation of a previous party called AP 
(alianza popular) which was founded in the 70s by Manuel Fraga, a minister 
of Franco back in the day. He was among other things minister of 
information, which entailed such wholesome duties as directing the 
censorship apparatus. He was also responsible for approving and cosigning in 
Council death sentences for people tried without due process. Whereas PP has 
turned somewhat left with the years, and Fraga is now a senator and not its 
president, it initially positioned itself against the Spanish Constitution, 
against statutes of autonomy, against divorce, against abortion, against any 
kind of descentralization, against the right to strike, etc. Today it is 
more of a typical European Christian-Democratic party, with some 
peculiarities. It is still centralist, it is for low taxes, against 
immigration, and somewhat militarist. Expressions like "bringing back Spain 
as a first-tier power" come to this party naturally. They are also 
politically very opportunistic, ranting against positive discrimination one 
day and proclaiming their "single nation of free and equal citizens", and 
the next day saying how they are going to reduce income tax for women in 
order to help them get jobs outside the home. PP ruled Spain from 1996-2004, 
the first 4 years in a minority government with the support of Basque and 
Catalan right-wing nationalists (PNV and CiU respectively). During this 
time, Aznar showed again his opportunism, ranting against Catalan before the 
elections, and then claiming he spoke Catalan in his intimate circle. After 
2000, they ruled with absolute majority in Congress and the Senate. They 
failed to reach agreements about most things, they abandoned their 
nationalist allies for a policy of recentralization on some issues, and they 
got us in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2004 they blamed the terrorist attack on 
ETA, since they had carried forward a rabbid anti-Basque and 
anti-nationalist campaign (well, against peripheric nationalists, they are 
clearly Spanish nationalists in their own right). They didn't change their 
claims about ETA, ever, even after it was clear to everyone they had lied 
and lost the elections as a result. As late as last year, people in the PP 
were still saying that one day the ETA link would appear. This time they 
have centred their message around the economy, which is decelerating, 
immigration, and the "breaking of Spain", which they think is a serious 
issue. In 2004 they obtained 9763144 votes, a 37.71%, rendering 148/350 
seats, a 42.28%, at a cost per seat of 65967 votes.

CiU. Convergencia i Unio. This is the right-wing Catalan nationalist party. 
It is a pretty reasonable Christian-Democratic nationalist party for 
Cataluña. It supports enterprisers, the self-employed, and social welfare 
benefits for workers under a rhetoric of class collaboration and social 
peace. It governed Cataluña for a long time since the Constitution until I 
think 2002 or so. It supported PSOE when it needed support, and PP in 
96-2000, although at times it has even signed before a notary public 
documents which bound it not to support PP, since PP is very disliked in 
Cataluña due to its centralist policies. In 2004 it obtained 835471 votes, a 
3.23%, rendering 10 seats, a 2.85%, at a cost per seat of 83547 votes.

ERC. Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya. This is a very old party, from the 
times of the Second Republic at least (1931-39). Most, but not all of its 
members are nationalists. It positions itself as the Catalan nationalist 
left. They're republican (explicitly against the monarchy) and have proposed 
a referendum for independence in the near future (2012 IIRC). They were 
insignificant until recently, when nationalist tired of CiU started voting 
for a nationalist left alternative. They govern Cataluña together with PSOE 
and another left party, and have supported PSOE's government these 4 years. 
They obtained 652196 votes, a 2.52%, rendering 8 seats, a 2.28%, at a cost 
per seat of 81524 votes.

EAJ-PNV. Partido Nacionalist Vasco. This is also a pretty ancient party, I 
think it was founded in late 19th or early 20th century. It started out as a 
strongly devout, exceptionalist, nationalist, almost racist/racialist, 
Basque party, in favour of the old privileges of the Basque provinces. It 
had connections with Carlism. In spite of that, it has evolved into 
something politically closer to CiU. I'd peg it a bit to the left of CiU, 
but with these parties it's hard to tell because of their necessary 
opportunism and the fact their main focus is regional. They have always 
ruled the Basque country, mostly in coalitions. They obtained 420980 votes, 
1.63%, rendering 7 seats, 2%, at a cost per seat of 60141 votes.

IU. Izquierda Unida. This is perhaps the most interesting party to Marxists. 
It is a coalition of left forces, I suspect something similar to what 
RESPECT and the like wanted to be. It is led by the PCE, the Communist Party 
of Spain, which is a fairly old (1930s at least) Marxist party. There are 
always tensions between PCE and the rest of the forces, probably because PCE 
is the largest and best organized force inside the coalition. Parties inside 
IU do retain their own organization, structure, and identity. There are 
communists, republicans, greens, and so on. They are the party most punished 
by the electoral system, as you will now realize. They obtained 1284081, a 
4.96%, rendering 5 seats, 1.42%, at a cost per seat of 256816!!! An IU seat 
costs 3 times as many votes as a PSOE seat.

The rest of parties are, at a national level, anecdotes. Nationalists of 
here and there who have not achieved a significant enough representation to 
matter, and pictoresque parties like the Cannabis party, which got 16918 
votes (and no seats of course!).

I'd talk a bit more about the conjuncture, the electoral bases for the 
parties (especially in class terms) etc, except that this post is already 
turning out huge. I hope that I have explained the situation more or less 
clearly, and of course I'd answer any questions. Surveys foresee a tight 
PSOE victory, but surveys in Spain are particularly unreliable.

In solidarity,
--David.