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The battle for Spain

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    So shocked the Cs bastards lost most all their vote to the Fash. The Orange Book Clegg Lib Dem's with added racism. Unionist cunts are by definition suspect no matter the polity.

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      First exit poll:

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        Looks like the result is going to be an absolute mess.

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          Yes, the left on about 158, the right on 151, and the various parties from the autonomous communities on 41. Of those, the Catalan parties won 23 out of 48, an increase of one, but narrowly falling in their target of half the seats. Similarly, the Basque parties also increased their tally to 11 out of 18, with Bildu also gaining a seat in Navarre. The Galician nationalists also return after an eight year absence.

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            PSOE and Podemos provisionally agree a coalition, to be fleshed out fully later. Bodes well for possible dialogue with Catalonia, especially as the PNV have pledged support for the alliance.

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              Course, they could have done this a few months ago when they had more seats between them. But something is something, I suppose.

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                Maybe us men should be stripped of the vote:

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                  So, Vox was the most popular choice for young Spanish men.

                  That's encouraging!!!

                  I thought that it's main support was supposed to be amongst older, unreformed Francoists. Not according to those figures.

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                    Government finally approved - first time the alternative left has served in a Cabinet since the Civil War.

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                      Spain and Portugal feel like the most positive - or least awful - places, politically, in the whole world at the moment. Though the weirdy hateful misogynists of VOX want trouncing.

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                        Originally posted by E10 Rifle View Post
                        Spain and Portugal feel like the most positive - or least awful - places, politically, in the whole world at the moment. Though the weirdy hateful misogynists of VOX want trouncing.
                        Strangely enough, that could be in the hands of the Catalan parties - if they come to a permanent agreement with Madrid, it takes the wind out of Vox's sails.

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                          Spain and Portugal feel like the most positive - or least awful - places, politically, in the whole world at the moment.
                          Would you, or someone else in the know, mind expanding on that?

                          In the aftermath of the UK general election i've been struck by how parochial the discussion and especially the recriminations have been on the Left. Is Corbyn to blame? The BBC? First past the post? The truth is, the centre left is doing badly almost everywhere. The Parti Socialiste in France is on the way to becoming the Mouvement Radical, or the Lib Dems: an organisation with plenty of activists and a solid local presence, but a peripheral force at the national level. And it's hard to look at the results in Germany or Sweden or Austria without seeing long-term decline.

                          So what is powering the positive feeling in Spain and Portugal? Is there anything we can learn from the vibrancy of the Left there, and how it has translated into relative electoral success? Or are the circumstances unique?

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                            To be fair, much of the Labour left has been making these points in the recent years to counter the arguments of the 1997 Nostalgia Movement ranged against them. I'm no expert on the Iberian experiences, but it seems that the influence of radical left parties in dragging centre-left ones away from austerity defeatism has been a factor.

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                              Originally posted by E10 Rifle View Post
                              To be fair, much of the Labour left has been making these points in the recent years to counter the arguments of the 1997 Nostalgia Movement ranged against them. I'm no expert on the Iberian experiences, but it seems that the influence of radical left parties in dragging centre-left ones away from austerity defeatism has been a factor.
                              Indeed - Podemos was the direct creation of the 15-M anti-austerity protests in 2011, waking up a Socialist Party whose only left opposition at the time was the virtually moribund Izquierda Unida. As for Portugal, both the Communists and the Socialists had strong bases as centres of opposition to the Estado Novo before the restoration of democracy, and it seems the green movement was behind the split of the former in the Eighties. As for what the French left can do, a merger of the Socialists and the Greens seems the only means either could have any impact on a presidential vote, unless the latter join up with France Insoumise, but Mélenchon's race appears to be run.

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                                Yeah we went to the Algarve three years ago and, driving inland a bit, there was quite a long-standing CP influence and practical roots in some of the small towns and villages round there, which dated from the dictatorship era. Perhaps Lisa Nandy's commission for towns should go and have a chinwag with them

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                                  I can't speak for Portugal and though I live here wouldn't regard myself as an expert on Spain either, nor am I an experienced political analyst but here goes; Certainly the political situation here is vastly superior to that in other European countries, but it could have been so much better if PSOE and Podemos had come to some kind of agreement after the elections in April 2019. Vox, while having polled around 10% of the popular vote were still very much behind the likes of PSOE, PP; Podemos and Ciudadanos, PSOE itself had increased its share by 6% and PP was d own by nearly 16%. But in the parliamentary vote to choose a new president Podemos, having asked for and been refused a significant role in the new government, abstained and so we had for several months "un gobierno en funciones". A lot of this was to do with a struggle for power between Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias.

                                  We bumble along until last November when a new election was held and though now we have a new coalition government which is left-leaning the stats from the election are worrying. Granted, Ciudadanos' vote collapsed, but that of the PP and Vox both increased significantly. So Sánchez had to rely on abstentions from 18 left-wing Basque and Catalan parties to get the simple majority to form a government. This support was not without negotiating complications.

                                  It's not going to be easy for PSOE to govern given that the independence parties will be making their own demands, which will impact on new legislation etc. Squeezed from the frankly fascist and racist right on one side, hemmed in by Catalans and Basques on the other. There's a lot of bile around and a sad lack of wanting to really cooperate. Nothing like Germany then or even, dare I say it, Austria.

                                  I would like to think that the support for Vox has plateaued but in regions such as Murcia, where there aren't so many immigrants but who those who are there do all the low-paid work such as harvesting and working in massive greenhouses and the like are hated (see what would happen if they weren't there; the economy would take such a dive...). At least in Spain there is free movement of EU citizens, contrary to what's about to happen soon in a certain other country.

                                  So the situation here is much better than elsewhere but if some kind of pact had been made back in April it could have been so much better. I think that very broadly speaking Spain is a left-wingish kind of nation but the rabid shouts of "ĄViva el Rey!" and the open accusations of "ĄAsesino!" towards a Basque nationalist member of parliament during one of the debates in the investiture make it clear that this is no socialist paradise and that a long and dangerous path lies ahead.

                                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novemb...ection#Results
                                  Last edited by Sporting; 10-01-2020, 08:26.

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                                    I think Portugal had some kind of organised realignment of the Left (Left Bloc..?) which was like a France Insoumise which was able to pull in more formerly Socialist Party activists and support.
                                    The speeches the right made at the vote to install the Spanish govt. bear out lots of what Sporting says: the slogan seems to be that Sanchez will be a ‘hostage’ to the separatists...

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                                      Standing up to the USA:

                                      https://english.elpais.com/internati...operation.html

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                                        It appears the PNV is the new Fianna Fáil, in terms of being impervious to any political trends, and being the largest "big tent party" remaining:

                                        https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1236726252997836801

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                                          Unsurprisingly, Arrimadas has romped home in the Ciudadanos leadership election:

                                          https://twitter.com/electo_mania/status/1236748135898243075

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                                            So did I read somewhere that the Vox leader is all Covid19ed up?

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                                              Well, the Secretary-General, who I believe is the deputy leader of the party.

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                                                Good.

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                                                  The PNV seem to have the small n Nats and the culchie god fearers sown up (apparently the Basque Country is still v religious, though I've only met angry and cool atheist left Nats with "interesting" self cut fringes). Middle class gradualist hegemonists like their CiU twin in the molt Catala heartland before the Pujol corruption went public and blew them up.

                                                  FF mightn't be a bad comparison.

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                                                    Originally posted by Diable Rouge View Post
                                                    Well, the Secretary-General, who I believe is the deputy leader of the party.
                                                    The leader bastard has it now.

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