The PSC has taken the final stretch of the parliamentary election campaign next Sunday with a clear advantage over the rest of the political formations. This is confirmed by eight surveys published yesterday, on the last day for the presentation of demographic studies on the Catalan elections, including the survey by the Center for Sociological Research (CIS). However, the name of the future president of the Generalitat remains unknown. First, because with the data indicated by the polls, with few exceptions and only resorting to the highest part of the range of results, the sums to reach majorities do not work out. And second, but no less relevant, because never at this point had such a deep sea of doubts been detected among the voters.
An example of this unprecedented situation is offered by the latest installment of the CIS. The field work, carried out between April 24 – the day of the explosive letter from Pedro Sánchez, two days before the start of the campaign – and the 30th of the same month – the day after the announcement of the continuity of the president of the Spanish Government – put the percentage of undecided voters at 39.7%. The party of doubt was, therefore, the majority at that time, a circumstance that to some extent also reflects later polls published yesterday and which explains that all parties, especially those that have a more liquid electorate and with more lines bordering with other candidates, go out these days to hunt for the undecided vote.
That almost 40% of interviewees who still doubted who to place their trust in show a still photo that, due to its size, cannot be compared with those of other previous elections. The equivalent CIS survey carried out in Catalonia before the elections of February 14, 2021 – an event marked by a pandemic that fueled maximum uncertainty about the behavior of the electorate – registered 26.3% undecided. In the highly disputed municipal elections in Barcelona on May 28, 2023, levels of indecision were perceived in the previous days that several surveys placed around 30%. And in the general elections of July 23, 2023, the last CIS survey prior to going through the electoral colleges, the percentage of those who had doubts about the meaning of their vote was barely 12.5%.
The calls to concentrate the vote, to exercise the useful vote, to mobilize the undecided and possible abstentionists, variations on the same theme, are part of the campaign manual for all elections and all political parties. They are repeated ad nauseam in each electoral call but, perhaps this time, they are more than justified.
The socialist Salvador Illa seems to face the final sprint with a wide distance over his undisputed pursuer, the Junts candidate, Carles Puigdemont, who in turn has a very considerable advantage over the ERC of president Pere Aragonès (except in the CIS survey) . The effect of Pedro Sánchez's maneuver, which dynamited the start of the Catalan election campaign, is not clearly perceived in the PSC's voting expectations. Perhaps, if he has impacted them, he has been slightly upward. All the polls in recent days give the socialists around 40 deputies with a peak of 44 and a minimum of 39. With this result, and taking into account that neither Esquerra Republicana nor Comuns Sumar are having a positive dynamic, the probabilities of the reissue of a tripartite in the Government of the Generalitat are not at all clear. And even less so are those of a hypothetical pro-independence majority, not even forcing an unviable sum of Junts and ERC with the CUP and Aliança Catalana, the far-right formation that consolidates its expectations of entering the Parliament in all the last-minute demographic studies. In any case, no combination seems possible today without the assistance of an ERC that, even suffering a serious setback, is called to play a decisive role in the configuration of future majorities.
The complicated puzzle of interests that is being drawn on the post-electoral horizon keeps very alive the threat of what no one wants to verbalize at this moment but that everyone has in mind and fears, a new entry of Catalan politics into a loop that ends up leading to a electoral repetition.
