Spain. September 2023. The new Government approves the “immediate return to the State of autonomous powers in Education, Health, Security and Justice.” The institutional clash with statutory legality must be resolved by a Constitutional Court subject not only to the well-known pressure of selective challenges. In reality, the plans of the new Cabinet include the “integration of the Constitutional Court in the Supreme Court”, with a Judicial Branch “elected only by the judges” (that is, by the majority and conservative APM). But the changes don't end there. The Executive urges the Prosecutor's Office to “illegalize separatist parties, associations and NGOs.” And it is preparing a legislative package to repeal "all gender legislation" and "equality plans in companies", as well as the laws "on euthanasia and abortion", "on Democratic Memory and LGTBI" or on "climate change and transition energy”.
A dystopian scenario? Not necessarily. All of these measures appear in Vox's electoral program, which in some points does not stray too far from the "repeal of sanchismo" strategy that the PP has presented. Consequently, a Government chaired by Núñez Feijóo, with Abascal as vice president and sole administrator of the absolute majority of the conservative bloc in Congress, could adopt some of these measures. And although the result of 23-J closed the door to that type of program, the electoral distance between reality and that flaming dystopia is minuscule. A more efficient distribution of votes within each block would be enough to minimize the ballots that do not translate into seats (see graphs).
Specifically, and on a count of more than 11 million votes, an exchange of just 11,000 votes within the conservative bloc (10,000 from Vox to the PP and just over 1,200 in the opposite direction, in a total of four provinces) would have led to the right, on July 23, until the doors of the absolute majority: 174 seats that, with the UPN and the Canarian Coalition, would add up to half plus one of the Chamber.
And if, in addition, the popular party had given Vox 7,000 of the more than 352,000 ballots they obtained in the province of Seville and almost 9,000 of the almost 82,000 they obtained in Burgos, then the ultras would have taken the last seat in those constituencies at the expense of the left and the desire of the conservative hard core would have been fulfilled: absolute majority in an exclusive regime.
The reverse phenomenon, although feasible, is more complicated due to the bias of the electoral system in favor of the conservative bloc. Of course everything would depend on the objectives. For example, if the priority aspiration of the Spanish left was to get rid of the unpopular Puigdemont diktat, then a transfer of just over 10,000 votes from Sumar to the socialists, in five provinces, would have been enough to gather a total of 157 seats. And that figure, together with the 11 deputies from PNV and Bildu, the seven from ERC and the one from the BNG, would represent the absolute majority of the Chamber.
Of course, for Sánchez to be able to manage the Catalan conflict without the sword of Damocles of the pro-independence seats, then the left would have needed to expand the transfer to seven more provinces (and 46,000 additional votes). In that hypothesis, PSOE and Sumar would have obtained 164 deputies (five more than popular and ultras, and an absolute majority with the six from Bildu, the five from the PNV and the solitary seat from the Canary Bloc or Coalition).
Finally, and in a scenario close to political fiction, an exchange that reached 17 constituencies (with almost 119,000 floating votes: 67,000 from Sumar to the PSOE and 51,000 in the opposite direction) would lead the left to a clear relative majority over the right. (169 deputies against 155) and just seven seats from half plus one of the Chamber. That is, in that case, Pedro Sánchez would need the support of the two Basque parties or just Bildu and the BNG to overcome the threshold of absolute majority.
It seems incredible but all that and much more could happen in an electoral system like the Spanish one in which the allocation of seats in each province works like a lottery in which no one can choose the exact number they are going to play with. And the history and destiny of an entire country ends up depending on that unpredictable chance.
