Partido Popular

Early elections in Spain: The socialists' risky bet against the rising power of the right

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, July 20, 2023

Two questions will keep analysts busy until well after the election.

Key Points: 
  • Two questions will keep analysts busy until well after the election.
  • First, will it be possible to form a government supported by a stable majority in parliament?

From regional and municipal elections to general elections

    • The parties in the Spanish governing coalition suffered a historic defeat in the May 28 regional and municipal elections.
    • Before the regional elections, these two parties led five and nine regions, respectively.
    • The PP, for its part, absorbed Ciudadanos, a right-wing party whose centrist turn was obviously a failure and who gave up running in the general elections.
    • Vox, for its part, has made significant progress compared to previous regional and municipal elections, and holds the balance of power in five regions won by the PP.

Democracy against the far right?

    • In 2019, he called early elections in November, after being elected a minority during the April election.
    • He hopes to dampen the conservative momentum in the hope that the PP and Vox will run out of a majority.
    • In the May 28 elections, the PP and Vox won 38.68 per cent of the vote, which, in the general election, would result in 160 seats, far from the 176 needed for a parliamentary majority.

The left bets on unity

    • The election campaign coincides with negotiations on the formation of coalitions to govern the autonomous regions.
    • In order to better deal with the threat posed by the far right, the left is committed to unity.
    • Political forces to the left of the PSOE rallied in a new party, Sumar, led by outgoing Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz.

The right hesitates, then assumes its alliances

    • To counter the socialist call to block the far right, Feijóo’s PP adjusted its strategy.
    • He first called on Vox to let his party govern the regions where he came out on top without making concessions to the far right.

The left has few allies

    • This change of course reflects a persistent problem for the PP: in a fragmented party system, the right has few potential allies in parliament, deeming alliances with the Basque and Catalan nationalist parties illegitimate.
    • To those who ask him about the risks of a coalition with Vox, Feijóo passes the ball back to Sánchez with what many see as a false equivalence.

Voter turnout, a key element for socialists

    • Voter turnout will be a key element of socialist success, but elections held in the summer tend to demobilize the electorate, which risks benefiting the right.
    • In this context, Sánchez wants to force his opponent to debate, while Feijóo is happy with a weak engagement of the electorate.

Calculated risk?

    • For now, polls show the PP winning, but a coalition with Vox may not be enough to give it a majority.
    • Under the circumstances, Sánchez clings to the hope of staying in power despite the expected victory of the PP.

Politicians believe voters to be more conservative than they really are

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Such developments might send a signal to European politicians to lean further to the right in a scramble to save votes.

Key Points: 
  • Such developments might send a signal to European politicians to lean further to the right in a scramble to save votes.
  • Yet our latest research, published this month, shows that politicians’ perceptions may not actually reflect voters’ true interests and opinions.

866 officials surveyed

    • On questions related to state intervention in the economy, gun control, immigration, or abortion, the majority of both Republicans and Democratic representatives surveyed believed that a greater share of citizens supported right-wing policies than what public-opinion data revealed.
    • We were curious whether conservative bias in politicians’ perceptions of public opinion was limited to American politics or was a broader phenomenon.
    • To explore this, we interviewed 866 politicians in four democracies that whose political systems differ from each other and from that of the United States: Belgium, Canada, Germany and Switzerland.
    • In all four countries, and on a majority of issues, politicians consistently overestimate the share of citizens who hold right-wing views.

The result of lobbying?

    • We tested this explanation in our studied countries, but could not find evidence to support it.
    • The right-wing citizens in our sample are not more politically active, and therefore visible, than their left-wing counterparts.
    • Yet the idea that politicians’ information environment might be skewed to the right can find support in other work.
    • The observed conservative bias might also be associated with what social psychologist call “pluralistic ignorance” (i.e., misperceptions of others’ opinions).

A threat to representative democracy

    • Irrespective of the sources of the conservative bias, the fact that it is persistently present in a variety of different democratic systems has major implications for the well-functioning of representative democracy.
    • Representative democracy builds upon the idea that elected politicians are responsive to citizens, meaning that they by and large attempt to promote policy initiatives that are in line with people’s preferences.
    • A 2020 study in Switzerland has shown that a sustained use of direct democracy might help politicians better understand public opinion.

Spanish elections: why devastating local losses to the right have forced socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez to call an early national vote

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, June 1, 2023

The local and regional elections that took place the 28th May have shaken up the political chessboard in Spain.

Key Points: 
  • The local and regional elections that took place the 28th May have shaken up the political chessboard in Spain.
  • The right-wing Partido Popular took the largest proportion of votes and now has the largest number of seats in local and regional governments.
  • In one fell swoop the socialist party has lost around 70% of the local and regional power it had.

National identity

    • Ideas about identity and nationalism came to play an important part in what were supposed to be elections about local matters.
    • During the last week of the campaign in particular, national issues dominated the discourse.
    • The Partido Popular has constructed a rhetoric of being the only party defending the constitution and the union of the country.
    • The party, presided over by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has absorbed the main voters from Ciudadanos, the Catalan political start-up that was at first phenomenally successful when it came to national prominence in 2015 but has already almost disappeared.

Political leadership

    • He has managed to boost his international image with good performances in Europe and occasional visits to Washington and Beijing.
    • But there is little time for Sumar to establish a strategy that can turn a social movement into a political entity with representation in the provinces.
    • Meanwhile, Alberto Núñez Feijoo, of the Spanish People’s Party, proposes a quiet style of leadership.

Plebiscite

    • He lost three MPs in the 2019 rerun election and now he has lost ground in many regions.
    • In Catalonia, his acceptance is growing, but the seats it brings to the general elections are not enough.
    • In this situation, Sánchez’s only chance is to get as near to his current 120 parliamentary seats as he can.
    • Whereas local elections weren’t supposed to be a plebiscite on national government, next 23rd of July seems to be the rerun of a general election whose first round took place last weekend.

Ekinops Partners with b<>com to Develop Future Access Network Solutions

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, September 22, 2021

PARIS, Sept. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ekinops (Euronext Paris - FR0011466069 - EKI), a leading network access and virtualization specialist, has announced a new research collaboration with the French innovation center bcom.

Key Points: 
  • PARIS, Sept. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ekinops (Euronext Paris - FR0011466069 - EKI), a leading network access and virtualization specialist, has announced a new research collaboration with the French innovation center bcom.
  • Long time partners, Ekinops and bcom have previously cooperated on optical transport solutions.
  • A bare-metal integrated container approach in OneOS6 would offer the benefits of both worlds of physical (pCPE) and virtualized (uCPE) platforms," comments Sylvain Quartier, VP Marketing & Product Strategy Access at Ekinops.
  • For further media information, or to schedule an interview with Ekinops, please contact Fraser Kay, iseepr