At nine minutes minus 10 at night last Sunday, the electoral specter of Donald Trump broke into the Spanish polls. The 180,942 members of the tables had counted 53% of the votes cast when the PP took the lead in seats, with 131, compared to 130 for the PSOE. The ghost of the ineffable former US president was haunting Spain because the popular ones were behind the socialists in percentage of the vote, at 1.8 points, a distance that would take about 50 minutes to overcome, while the difference in deputies in their favor did not stop growing in that time, up to 12.
It was a short-lived but significant version of Republican Trump's 2016 delegate victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, despite losing by 2%. It was the repetition of the triumph, in the same circumstances, of his co-religionist George W. Bush against Al Gore in 2000. The Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau also won seats, but not on ballots, in the last two elections. And in autonomous Spain it happened in Catalonia, twice, with CiU being first in deputies, and the PSC, at the head in votes; in Euskadi, with the PSOE and the PNV, respectively; in Asturias, with Foro and the PSOE, and in the Canary Islands, with Coalición Canaria and PSOE and PP, since in 2015 CC was third in votes and first in seats.
The Trump effect on 23-J was symbolic, because, although Feijóo tried so hard, it was not a presidential election but a parliamentary one. Since the scrutiny passed the tercio, the main enigma had already been cleared up, since it was evident that PP and Vox did not add up and the unknown resided in whether the PSOE would need Junts.
That almost third of the ballot, between 53% and approximately 85% with the PSOE leading the way in votes and the PP in seats is revealing. It showed that in a tight scenario, such as the one that took place from 9:51 p.m. on Sunday, the popular ones have many options to obtain more seats in Carrera de San Jerónimo than the socialists. Your chances grow the smaller the difference. In the opposite direction a priori it seems very complicated that they could achieve it with more than 2% disadvantage.
Perhaps this situation already occurred in the past, perhaps in 1996, in the closest generals. If it happened, it went unnoticed. The count was not followed up to the minute on the mobile nor was it commented on Twitter.
Yes, it was known that it could happen, even if it was not for the most visible part, that of the polls, since there was a poll from the phase before the motion of censure, with Ciudadanos as the supposed first force in votes, which was ousted by the PP in deputies. Although it was not transferred to the citizenry, decades ago political science concluded that it was possible for the populares to add more seats with fewer votes than the PSOE, due to the "conservative bias of the system." This is the elegant way, and not very understandable to the general public, as is usual in this discipline, of stating that the rules of the game are leaning to the right.
The fundamental reason lies in genetics. The system was designed by the government of Adolfo Suárez, although with the assent of the democratic opposition. He did what the Politikon collective called "a sophisticated and admirable piece of political manipulation." It consisted of squeezing the rural hegemony of the UCD to the maximum, due to the conservative predominance in these areas and thanks to the recycling of the structures of the Movement, the only party of the dictatorship. At the same time, it was a matter of not paying dearly for suarista weakness in large cities, dominated by the left.
That is why in Spain there are actually three electoral systems: one, that of the provinces with 10 seats or more, is proportional, in order for the UCD to get its share. There is another majority, with the constituencies that elect 5 or less, so that Suárez would take an even larger portion of deputies than his share. The third, intermediate, is a mixture of the other two, in the same way that there were provinces that were very conducive to the government and others that were hostile.
Eighteen years ago, José Ramón Montero, the most renowned Spanish specialist in elections, and the political scientist Ignacio Lago dissected the conservative bias of the system, based on the generally right-wing provinces with five seats or less. They have 35 more deputies than what they would have per population, thanks to the fixed two for each constituency that punishes the most populous. In addition, the deputies are distributed with great advantage for the two largest parties, especially the first. The rest hardly achieve anything.
On Sunday, Feijóo recovered the only deputy from Ceuta and consolidated that of Melilla. In Soria he could not do anything other than draw one with the PSOE. But of the eight provinces with three deputies, in seven he took two, for one socialist. Only Guadalajara escaped, because Vox entered. In Huesca, one of the examples of maximum profitability, with 38% of the votes, it had 66% of the seats. In the constituencies of four, they failed in their goals in La Rioja and Burgos, but not in Lugo, Ourense and Salamanca. There, with around half of the votes, he won 75% of the representation. It was in this majority subsystem that the PP's 14-seat advantage over the PSOE was cemented, since in the intermission it won by the minimum and in the proportional there was a balance, due to the resounding victory of the PSC in Barcelona.
On Sunday the inclination to the right of the Spanish electoral board became evident, although that does not mean that it always harms the PSOE, since it already benefited it at specific moments, of weakness or division of its rivals, as in the eighties or in the 2019. However, the conservative bias is evident in the global balance since 1977 and in very close elections like those on Sunday. Thus, the PP was imposed by 1.4% in votes and 14 deputies, which is the equivalent of 4% of Congress.
