Strategic Voting?

One remembers the old days, where two behemoths stood face to face, as the votes were counted, and one took the majority and formed Government while the other led the Opposition. In Spain, this was the case since Democracy returned following Franco’s death (we will ignore the small regional parties, which in any event generally identified themselves with one side or the other).

Now, we have five major parties instead of two: the (fragmented) far-left of the Izquierda Unida (itself a coalition of parties) together with Podemos and its break-off assemblies; the PSOE in the centre-left; the Ciudadanos in the centre-right, the Partido Popular (which traditionally has occupied the centre-right) and the far-right Vox (described this week by a Ciudadanos leader as ‘the Populist Vox’).

This spread of parties inevitably means that pacts and coalitions must be made. In Andalucía, the PP and the C’s are currently ruling with Vox as the unseen third partner. Indeed, this arrangement, more or less and according to how the votes fall, has been embraced by the PP which has now given up its ‘party-most-voted should rule’ claim (in Andalucía, that would have been Susana Díaz’ PSOE-A anyway).  The regional PP leaders now accept that a pact ‘a la andaluza’ with C’s and Vox could be built in other regions of the country. Including the Region of Madrid (here). Indeed, elections these days, says ElDiario.es, are now twofold – first comes the vote (open to all) and then comes the pact. But what, exactly, are the details? What was it that we voted for? The French system of two rounds starts to make more sense.

We shall start to see ‘strategic voting’ from the public in Spain in the coming months and years...