Tall, lean, with long limbs and a cavernous, assertive voice, Jaime Miquel (Madrid, 1959) is considered one of the greatest experts on electoral behavior in the country. Author of The Perestroika of Felipe VI, a book that in 2014 anticipated the end of the two-party system and the urgency of democratic modernization, after four decades of what he calls “post-Francoism”, Miquel has advised more than half of the parties in the parliamentary arch and has been the electoral behavior advisor to the presidency of the Government from 2018 to 2023. Graduate in Geography and History, researcher of electoral behavior and public opinion trained at Gallup, specialized in the prospective estimation of electoral results and strategic advice, In this exhaustive talk, he reviews the cycle that he announced a decade ago and the state of the electoral and political transformations that have not ceased since then, as well as the immediate news of the electoral calendar.
Let's start immediately, the Galician elections. Is there a match?
There are two main factors that tell us that change is perfectly possible. The first is that Alfonso Rueda is no better candidate than Alberto Núñez Feijoo. Feijoo was at 48% and got 42 deputies. But if the Popular Party drops to 45.5% it would have 37 seats, that is, it is two and a half points away from losing the absolute majority. There is the PP. Although, in reality, today it is more like 47%, not 48%, so it is only a point and a half away from losing the Government. So on the one hand there is this factor, that Rueda is not a better candidate than Feijóo and he is not going to have 48%, as 40db claimed in El País. That's not going to be like that. And on the other hand, in the general elections, private polls lost all credit and voters lost all confidence in what they say. Normally in Galician elections, when the polls that give an absolute majority to the PP begin to be published, the campaign ends and a contest breaks out on the left side to see who leads the opposition. This is not going to happen this time, it is very clear. That is to say, what the polls say, voters are going to take with great distrust. This time, the feeling of change, that there can be change, will last until the last day of the campaign.
I understand.
On the other hand, Sumar is at 4.4% in Galicia, at 5.1% in Pontevedra and at 5% in A Coruña. That's another reference. That is, for it not to enter, the total data in Galicia has to be closer to 4% than 4.5%. Furthermore, to some extent there are two other factors that may influence: One is Yolanda's position at the head of the Ministry of Labor, which she continues to take steps in the field of the interprofessional minimum wage, etc.
You have just announced that you are facing a reduction in working hours.
That is. He is in charge of the Ministry of Labor and this journey is electorally positive for Sumar. On the other hand, Unai Sordo, secretary of CC OO, has endorsed the unemployment decree and that means that all the noise made against the decree runs into that obstacle. That is, you can go against Yolanda Díaz, but where you find a wall is by going against Unai Sordo and against the action of the Ministry of Labor. Podemos is marginal in Galicia and champions non-comprehension, so it can only steal a few votes; but not all votes on this occasion are important. Sumar will be entering through Coruña and Pontevedra; as soon as it is above between 65,000 or 70,000 votes in Galicia. Those two seats take away from PP with a high probability and if they take away from PP, then we are already in an arithmetic of change. If they subtract PSOE or the Bloc, in reality nothing is lost because the positions are very defined: The BNG comes ahead of the PSG, with about 320,000 votes.
This leads me to another question: What real incentives does the PSOE have for change, taking into account that it would have to give the presidency of the Xunta to the BNG and consolidate the Sumar space, which would return to the Galician parliament?
That is a good question. In this section of 2024, what the PSOE has on its way are European elections where it needs all the votes, including those of Sumar, to be the most voted list ahead of the PP.
So?
If there is a change of government, it would effectively be handing over the presidency to Ana Pontón and aligning the BNG with ERC and Bildu, the three communities, in the field of non-Spanish nationalists. And if the PP loses the Xunta de Galicia, the political future of Alberto Núñez Feijóo becomes very dark. Then the PSOE does have incentives. And we have not talked about the other factor that could be influencing it, which is the pellets.
It is a revival in the memory of the voter.
Exact. It links us with the chapapote, with the Prestige. And to some extent they can act as a mobilizing factor, let's say, impulsive of a vote of anger against a Xunta de Galicia that is managing in a way that can be interpreted that could have been much more agile. But I was wondering about something else...
For the incentives of the PSOE to make Ana Pontón president.
Oh yeah. The PSOE is about to eliminate Feijóo, because he would be quite shorn. Because in the end he Rueda, if you look closely, he has the same profile, and even makes the same gestures with his head when he speaks, as Feijóo. This happens a lot on the radio, where you have a main announcer, a program director, who when he goes on vacation and is replaced by someone from his team, speaks like him. Well, that's a bit happening with Rueda and Feijóo. That is an important incentive for the PSOE, especially because now we will stop talking about the Galicians and we will go to the parliamentary session of the week. I say this above all because the PSOE – Enric Juliana also highlighted it recently in an article – needs everyone's consensus. You, PSOE, cannot behave as you have behaved until now. Because? Well, because there is no route there. You have to negotiate everything with everyone and every time. And in that sense, the votes on the decrees have a very healthy didactic contribution. That is to say, this is not about implication, this is about the historical opportunity to produce a profound cultural change in the political culture of the PSOE and the other formations. It is fully transversal and transferable to society as a whole. I explained this recently in an article in Infolibre.
Yes, I read it.
And he explained that plurinationality is a Spanish identity concept. The Catalan independentists are uninational nationalists, like the Spanish nationalists of Vox and the PP. But Spain is plurinational. That is why I highlight this profound contradiction of that Spanish nationalist. That is to say: which Spain do you carry in your heart? That Spain where the sun doesn't set? It is that of Philip II. And what was that Spain like? She was not Castilian. It was a set of kingdoms autonomous in their national designs. She was not Castilian.
If anything, it was Biscayan. For the conquerors, I say.
Yes, or even Extremaduran.
TRUE.
So, you turn yourself upside down when they talk to you about amnesty, because the Spain that you rationalize is that of Nueva Planta, with a Castilian matrix, planted by Francisco Franco and, therefore, authoritarian. There is a contradiction between that Spain that you long for, where the sun does not set, which was, saving distances, plurinational, and the one that makes you react, which is one, national, Castilian and authoritarian.
TRUE.
I think this is the issue. We are in times of democratic didactics as there is a part of society, a product of the political transition, that needs this pedagogy. It is another issue that the PSOE has to address. Because that transition was nothing perfect. A political transition that starts from the amnesty for the crimes of Franco's regime cannot be perfect. What it produces is a conceptual confusion in a part related to the electoral regime that mixes values typical of democracy with others that are typical of dictatorship. That is not resolved and the PSOE is responsible for it not being resolved. When the politicians from the opposition to the regime came to power is when this democratic didactics should have been done. And also other contributory teaching that was not done. That is to say: “The country is yours, countrymen.” The issue of democratic didactics is very well understood by comparison with Portugal. In Portugal, society understands in a single day that what happened with Salazar is over, there has been a revolution, a peaceful revolution, but a revolution. In Spain, no, in Spain this has not yet been done.
Before delving into this, I wanted to ask you about the rest of the electoral calendar. The European elections are going to be read as proof of the July result, meaning that 23-J was not an accident, but really existing Spain. With Feijoo's political future evidently up in the air. But Euskadi and Catalonia are also on the calendar.
I don't have data about Euskadi or Catalonia, but I do have impressions. Impressions and memory. The PNV is a political formation that always improves the initial results estimated for it during the campaign. My impression is that these elections will be won by the PNV as always with a significant progression from Bildu. And that, in terms of blocs, it will do so at the cost of a setback of the state formations, PP and PSOE. That's my general impression. And as a political result, a PNV government supported by the PSOE.
In other words, an endorsement of the current government.
An endorsement in the current government, yes. And probably with Vox disappearing from Euskadi, because he only has one seat for Álava.
And the Catalan elections?
The impression I have is that the PSC is going to have a great result, corresponding to a turning of the page in Catalan politics. We are no longer in times of unilateralism or total confrontation with what they call “the State.” We are in another phase, in a phase of concrete agreements. And there you have the amnesty law, but also other agreements that can be expressed in a renewed statute. We are there more than anywhere else.
Before I spoke about the parliamentary didactics that we saw in the session of endorsement of the decrees regarding the Government. Do you think Junts has read the moment correctly, or does it need to?
I think you understand the situation. In Catalan politics there is an element that perhaps is not at the state level with equal intensity, which is what people will say. What they will say does not affect the PSOE or the PP to the same extent. Understanding what they will say as what they understand is what their voters want. This means that, for example, Sánchez has not yet said “plurinationality” or that it has been very difficult for him to say “amnesty.” I think that in Catalan politics what people will say is something that is even more present. With the process, they have taken a journey that has led them to a dead end. Having to find another way means giving explanations for everything. When I say that the Catalan sovereigntist is gripped by what people will say, what worries him is “what Catalan society as a whole will say.” The reality is that they have landed within the framework of the Constitution, in real politics, and this is what they cannot explain. They solve this with political action that conveys the idea that, by being more intelligent, as everyone knows, we take advantage of each situation, and that the constitutional framework is very relative. But I believe that, apart from this, what Junts is doing is what it should do, saying: “No, this is parliamentarism and if you want to pass a decree, you talk about it with me, you don't come to me with the drafted text.” and you tell me that either I vote in favor or I am against the people and with the anomalous Spanish right.” By the way, I'm not saying right and extreme right, I'm saying “the anomalous Spanish right.”
I understand, yes, anomalous in EU terms.
And the same can be said of Podemos. I have said before that Podemos in Galicia is marginal, and that is true, but the truth is that in Congress it is another political force of the Mixed Group with whom things must be negotiated. And Yolanda Díaz doesn't necessarily have to do it. That “let Yolanda solve this for me and if it fails, she fails” this is not like that. I am going to say it in a much clearer way: the investiture agreement of Pedro Sánchez is a plurinational agreement that is represented in a search for concrete solutions to fit people of non-Spanish national identity into a common project. This is what should be explained, but it is so difficult for the PSOE. That is, this is no longer about “un sol poble” and a referendum for self-determination, etc. No. We are more in Mertxe Aizpurua's territory when he motivates his positive vote for the investiture.
I understand.
When Pedro Sánchez in the investiture session talks about the “agenda of the reunion”, of “dialogue”, or of “coexistence”, but does not situate himself exactly in the terms of the agreement reached, in which his voters can be seen represented, that first day of the investiture session, Junts tells him “we abstain.” That is, he tells him: “You have not understood.” And this is what happens when voting on decrees. Junts says: “Hey, don't you understand things?” The inertia of the PSOE leads it to an interpretation of “I am already the president, here we are already in charge and this is lentils.” Well, it's not like that. This is why I say that everything that happened, both with Junts and Podemos, in the voting of the decree session has a very interesting didactic component.
It was going to be the session of the amnesty scandal and the difficulties with the decrees overshadowed it. Perhaps in the PSOE they see this as a partial success.
An amnesty law is an exceptional but normal resource. I repeat, exceptional, but normal. It is a resource of a State to resolve a specific situation. Therefore, this opposition to a specific solution for a specific problem goes beyond the parameters of what is the ordinary performance of any democratic State. I already link all this to the European elections.
Follow.
That is to say, this opposition per se has very little basis, very little solidity of argument, it immediately takes us out of the parameters of the world of democratic political debate, because it leads us to "the rule of law is being curtailed", etc. Why do I link it to the European elections? Because I have said before that it is very important for the PSOE to have more votes than the PP in European elections. But this has an enormous difficulty, it is not enough to keep a good part of the votes that have gone to Sumar. That is their unequivocal intention, and Yolanda Díaz and Sumar will see what they do. Because “Yolanda Díaz, vice president of Sánchez with Sánchez”, that is the bear hug, the perfect trap. On the other hand, “Yolanda Díaz, Minister of Labor” and less vice president, leading what Sánchez does not dare to lead, could define her own political space. And she would also silence Podemos. But it would not be enough for the PSOE to take a big bite out of Sumar; they need Vox, in elections that are favorable to them, to obtain a great result at the expense of the PP. In fact, it is much more important for Vox to obtain a great result at the expense of the PP than what the PSOE can obtain at the expense of Sumar. Or what the two old parties always have in mind, which is mobilization. “We have to mobilize people!” We must not mobilize, we must close the transfer of votes to the PP. The PSOE's problem is closing the transfer of votes to the PP long before mobilizing. The old parties think that people are mobilized by their campaigns. No. People mobilize because they understand, because they are intelligent, because they see what is in front of them and they mobilize. Therefore, the PSOE's effort should not be to mobilize people but rather to ensure that they do not go to the PP. In short, everything that brings us to the European contest, it can be said that Feijóo is right in covering up Vox. When Vox was successful, it was when it was able to locate itself in a place where the PP did not reach and that place was “it destroyed the autonomous communities, I defend a traditional family with the woman in her place, against the abortion law, etc.” It was a place where The PP was no longer located. And what is the PP doing now? Occupy that place. That is what Isabel Díaz Ayuso does and Feijóo replicates it. In that sense, in tactical terms, it is correct. In strategic terms, no, because the only thing the PP is doing is moving away from that central place where it can capture voters who come from the PSOE. The central place, that of positions five and six on the ideological scale, are democrats, they are moderate people, so this tactical movement of the PP distances it from continuing to receive transfers, it distances itself from where a Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla could win the votes . And he is going to the corner to dispute with Vox a result for the European elections.
Tactics compromise strategy.
That's why I say that in tactical terms, this is the correct move, invading a space that belongs to Vox. But in strategic terms it has a problem: sooner or later they will have to reflect because there is another profile which is that of Moreno Bonilla, which is precisely the opposite. Or at least, it is expressed as the opposite. Because then they are what they are.
Yes, I understand, build an alternative identity to Ayuso.
So, what should Vox do to achieve that great result that allows the PSOE to be the most voted list? Because these are the paradoxes of the vote market. Well, it should be located in another place where the PP cannot reach. There you have Donald Trump or Javier Milei, you have the fascist greetings of the Italians, that is, you have a context.
In this sense, one of Vox's deficits since Macarena Olona left is that it lacks an identity, let's say, postmodern authoritarian, authoritarian of these times, Milei type, final boss of uberliberalism. And in fact, in those terms Isabel Díaz Ayuso is much more efficient.
It is true, but regarding Vox there is always a crisis produced by the system. Vox is a political group that the system is constantly in crisis, although it is not in crisis. In this sense, the departure of Iván Espinosa de los Monteros is an opportunity for them because what Espinosa de los Monteros represents is neoliberalism, that of Bush's neocons. If Vox has the possibility of obtaining a great result in the European elections, it is not that way.
Praying the rosary in Ferraz has nothing to do with the 21st century, with that new extreme right of our times.
And they have another problem: Spain is a welcoming land and we are all mestizo. Anyone can come here and establish themselves. In other words, we are not a small social-democratic construction society, where there are all the same guys, Nordic and blonde. We are not Norway. We are from a thousand different origins and anyone can come here and establish themselves. This xenophobia thing doesn't work so much in Spain. In fact, it is very difficult for them to explain it, they say that they receive subsidies that lower class people do not receive and things like that, that is, they explain themselves in these tangential ways because the anti-immigration discourse does not work to the extent that it does in other societies. European.
The last time we met was eight years ago, in a world that no longer exists. It was about his book The Perestroika of Felipe VI, a treatise on the changes that were then imminent and where many of the concepts that later defined the decade and took over half the country are found. There is no doubt that the process was launched and that in electoral terms, the process is still fully alive. However, the resistance has been fabulous, the ephemeral life of the new parties is striking, which I suspect has to do with the power of electoral demand and their sovereignty to replace the supply. That is to say, the voter acts and the moment you have stopped serving the purpose for which he placed you in the electoral market, you can go home.
Indeed. Before, in 2013 we were able to visualize the change. In 2013, when there are no elections, there are more people abstaining than voting for political parties. That is to say, a profound demobilization had occurred. First from the electorate on the left side, where it had started in 2010 with Zapatero's political turn.
Yes, May 2010.
And there is another demobilization that corresponds to the youngest, the youngest half of the census. Then there was another deep demobilization on the right side, in 2012, coinciding with the sovereign debt crisis. The pre-electoral surveys of 2014, European elections, precisely give us very low results for Ciudadanos and Podemos, but with parliamentary representation. I am talking about 1.2 million votes that would be obtained by a political formation that will be located in what I called “the zone of rupture of the indebted societies of southern Europe”, a concept that Enric Juliana synthesized in “the zone of rupture” . There are 1.2 million people voting for Podemos, but also another half a million votes added by other candidates that were also there, which were Cuts Zero, Movimiento Red (of Judge Elpidio Silva) and Party X (of Falciani). All that.
I remember.
Well, in that campaign they only talk about “the novelty” and Podemos and Ciudadanos enter, with very low numbers, but they enter. And then you find yourself in the CIS barometer for October 2014 and January 2015 – because before the barometers were every three months – and both have already shot up. Above all, we can.
They were already at 27% or 28%.
Yes. Disputing the PP to be the first political force, because the PSOE was no longer the first. And from there we go to the 2015 elections and multi-party system. What has happened since then? What can we say?
I hear you.
Well, from 2015 to 2016, the entire environment of Podemos and Izquierda Unida lost a million votes because there were 6.1 million in December and they became 5.1 million and 71 deputies. But they continued to participate in a very important way in the old PSOE electorate. Let's say that this young half that had demobilized mobilizes in different spaces. Three and a half million go to Ciudadanos. And those who go to Ciudadanos express something very important, which is: “We are not from the left side, but we do not want to be like the PP, we want to be like Angela Merkel.” They express that profile of, let's say, a conventional right in European Union terms. Those who have gone to Podemos and Izquierda Unida, 6.1 million, what they want is...
“Throw the PSOE into the sea wherever there are more sharks”, I remember well our conversation from eight years ago.
Yes, end what they call “the regime of '78” and produce very profound transformations in Spain. Elections were repeated because they did not reach an agreement and there appeared a first disappointment, because the repetition costs a million votes to that left side, to the left of the PSOE, but it also costs another 600 or 700 thousand that are not in the final balance with the PSOE because other parties recover it.
Then Pedro Sánchez is fired in October, Mariano Rajoy is elected president, with socialist support, and in the first half of 2017 the Vistalegre II crisis occurs in Podemos and the PSOE primaries, in which Sánchez returns.
In the PSOE primaries, I already knew Iván Redondo and what happens is, on the one hand, that Sánchez begins to use my concepts about plurinationality, zone of rupture, perestroika, etc. Sánchez appears as an outsider who defeats his party, the old PSOE, who defeats the media, who defeats the real powers... And I say media because everyone was with Susana Díaz. Sánchez defeats the royal power. That's the news: a guy has defeated the system.
And in 2018, motion of censure.
Against Rajoy. At that time I was working with Marta Pascal, from PdeCAT, who wins the game against Carles Puigdemont so that the party supports Sánchez.
Shortly after, Puigdemont would cut off his head for it.
Yes. Because for this motion of censure to go forward, Marta Pascal's role was very important. Iván Redondo was then negotiating with the PNV and that ended up going well. When the motion of censure arrives, the PSOE takes the lead in voting intentions. The PP cannot, because it is taking away a good portion of the Citizens' vote.
And seven months later, both in the photo of Colón.
We were going for a super May, but we advanced numbers and we were already seeing that it was interesting to anticipate those elections. Those elections took place, in April 2019, and we found a Ciudadanos that was just over 300,000 votes away from the PP. They get 4.1 million and 57 deputies, against a PP that has gotten 4.5 million, 66 seats. We find a Vox at 2.6 million and 24 minutes. That is, Vox breaks in. Ciudadanos had given the PP a scandalous trip and the PSOE had gone to 7.5 million, which is 123 deputies. We can 3.7 million, 42 deputies. Well, what has happened? On April 28, it happened that this profound change that has occurred in electoral behavior and in citizens' expectations materializes in the figure of Pedro Sánchez. He is a hero who has defeated the old system by imposing new arithmetic. He is the one who could make those profound changes viable. That's where Ciudadanos made a mistake, which should have given Sánchez the government without becoming part of it, and thus would have controlled the situation as appropriate, provoking general elections when it had the numbers. Albert Rivera was wrong because instead, he interprets that a repeat election is convenient for him. He believes that in a repeat election he would bypass the PP and at the same time he sees that there is a fundamental base in his voters who are former voters of the PP and that knowledge grips him. The market is one of demand, but you, from the supply side, have to take steps with your electorate, take the electorate where you want. In short, there is an expectation of profound change in Spain in the 21st century, which represents that Sánchez who has defeated everyone, has produced a motion of censure and has taken over the Government. That is, he articulates himself as the leader who will produce the changes. Ciudadanos misinterprets the situation and disappears. And then we find a Podemos that, ultimately, forces the following elections. Podemos had dropped from 5.1 million to 3.7 million. He probably considered that what the PSOE was offering him to share government was not fair.
I remember, what a great summer.
The fact is that there is a repeat election and again, disappointment. Podemos falls again to 3.1 million and the PSOE falls to 6.7 or 6.8 million. That is, disappointment again on the left side. Because? Well, because the voter thinks, “but are you guys stupid or what? We are giving you the votes to undertake the changes and there is no way. You are not able to agree. “Hey, let them all give you blood sausage.” In any case, the months go by and we see that the PSOE is not, far from it, responding to plurinational expectations. We return to the same thing because the April result had included voters from all parties, voters from regional parties and PSOE voters who had gone to Podemos and were returning, and there had been an important mobilization under the expectation of those transformations. These transformations are disappointed by the trajectory of the PSOE and that is what is reflected in the loss of votes on the left side in the electoral repetition.
Both in the PSOE and in Podemos.
Yes. Podemos is partly right when it says that, subjected to media harassment and constant slander, its space deteriorates, however Podemos never had political leaders with a high rating in terms of the masses. And he always had a belligerent, unfriendly political action. It is impossible that there were a significant number of voters receptive to this way of interpreting things. Things must be explained with much less belligerence than Podemos did during the last two years.
I remember how shocking their political method in government was: they sold all their victories as defeats. If they agreed on budgets, they came out to say that they were not that good, they closed a Housing law and communicated that it was a disappointment... Systematically, all their political successes, and there were not a few, all those places to which they managed to force the PSOE and to which the PSOE itself was not going to go, they sold out of dissatisfaction, as if it were their surrender.
Yes. The offer fails. Not so much in Ciudadanos as in Podemos because there is a question to ask here. Why does Sumar exist? Because Podemos did not achieve or consolidate a stable result. If not, Sumar would not exist. I have to mention – because that is a fact that I handled a lot when Podemos did not enter the Assembly in the early elections in Madrid in 2021 – to something else.
What is it referring to?
When Ayuso calls, Podemos is at the 5% limit to enter the Madrid Assembly, and Pablo Iglesias says “I am going to solve the problem” and introduces himself. And there it already appears in the previous information, because it is seen in the vote transfers, that Más Madrid is giving Podemos a trip and is also taking 24% of the PSOE votes. It is a replacement of one for another, it is the Podemos voter looking for a replacement. Más Madrid broke two paradigms there: the paradigm of organization, because organization is not necessary to be successful, and the paradigm of unity, which was not necessary. Both, but especially that of unity. In fact, it can be said that the success of Más Madrid is a product of the breakup. By the way, Ciudadanos is another example of breaking the organizational paradigm, it breaks out without organization, like Podemos, which also breaks out without organization.
But what information was he referring to?
The result of Podemos in Madrid in May 2021, 7.4%, reveals what Podemos is worth in the electoral market in a general election: 7.4 in Madrid is 4.5 in Spain and 4.5 in Spain is one or two seats for Madrid Congress and that's it. That was reflected two and a half years ago in those elections and that is absolutely indisputable. Podemos, with the leadership of Pablo Iglesias, is worth 4.5% in state terms in 2021. The problem was evident there: that Podemos could no longer assure the PSOE an arithmetic with certain possibilities of contesting the general elections to the PP. That's how it is. After that result in Madrid, that space had to look for new formulas. That's Sumar.
Excuse me, so do you maintain that Yolanda Díaz and Sumar are not a product of Pablo Iglesias' mistake, who errs, as he maintains, in the selection of the person who should succeed him at the head of the leadership of the space, but that they are the result of the electoral failure? of Churches in Madrid?
Yes. Let's see, Iglesias, I imagine, considered Yolanda's rating among PSOE voters and among Podemos voters, which at that time was already seen to be a value to play in an election, and I imagine that he tried to tie Yolanda Díaz as a future Podemos candidate. What can we do? We can let them manage it. And she didn't let up. I imagine that's how it works. But Yolanda Díaz's entourage, together with Izquierda Unida, which has a very relevant role in this, together with the commons and other groups, say "hey, we are running for election, but with you as a candidate." And yes, all of this has to do with a decreasing trajectory of Podemos in the electoral market and with a result in Madrid that, I insist, clarified exactly where Podemos was. That is why now it is easy for us to see Íñigo Errejón as spokesperson for the parliamentary group, because he symbolizes very well all those who were in Podemos and are no longer there. All you have to do is read El Mundo's interview with Juan Carlos Monedero. Podemos has become so small that not even Juan Carlos Monedero can fit in there anymore.
What is the father?
And you can see it on Canal Red, accusing Infolibre of participating in a company with ties to the Iranians... That is, all of this explains a certain political culture, which is increasingly less of the masses and more of a small group and which only has the Joint Group and the objective of obtaining a deputy in the European elections. There are your five deputies and they will have to decide. And the Government will have to talk to them about all the things that are done now. But all this gives you an idea of where that interpretation of things has taken us. Monedero talks about unity, referring to solving these problems to make a joint approach. I don't see anything reprehensible in what he is saying, he is narrating a situation that occurs and proposing dialogue or even replacement: if it is not possible to agree, let them disappear.
In general, this decade of mutation of the political framework seems that many, even the majority, have misinterpreted the voters' mandate.
Of course, for example, I have talked a lot about the Borja Sémper profile. The profile of Borja Sémper, before joining this PP of Feijóo and having to play the role of covering the gap for Vox every Monday, was precisely that right wing with a democratic profile that could have perfectly occupied the space left by Ciudadanos. It was the Ciudadanos profile in the PP. Well, Ciudadanos disappeared but Borja Sémper is not there. And in fact now there is no one there. That does not mean that the electoral space does not exist, of course it does, but sometimes it happens that the demand is there but the supply does not exist.
We have reviewed the decade and we have 2023 left. We have seen it many times throughout this long cycle, from 2014 to today: the incredible stability of the blocks, that is, in the face of “the tsunamis” that are always announced three months before the elections, “the turnaround” and all these inventions, the truth is that we have an extraordinarily stable electoral map. Especially if we compare it with others around us, where the resilience of large political brands has been very poor or has not worked at all. We, on the other hand, despite all the upheavals, including the pandemic, motions of censure, corruption scandals, ephemeral political brands that are quickly replaced..., despite everything, the general picture, that is, the voter's mandate, is very persistent .
Well, let's say that the polls have reflected this in an extraordinarily stable way on June 23, but not so in the municipal elections in May. But they were elections that the PSOE could have won in number of votes in Spain. And it didn't happen. And it didn't happen because of an absolutely amateurish approach to the campaign...
The truth is that the impression of a failure was much greater than the actual result of votes. What happened is that the ball touched the tape in many places and always fell badly for the PSOE.
Man, yes, but the political result was catastrophic because it was the loss of autonomous communities and it meant losing to the PP in number of municipal votes. But there we start from an approach that is to make Pedro Sánchez the protagonist, who makes an announcement every day of the campaign in a different place. This approach is amateur, the product of someone who has not experienced electoral processes. Because? Because all the headlines were being taken by Pedro Sánchez, he was not leaving room for the real protagonists of that campaign, which were the regional leaders and the municipal candidates. But in addition, when you make an announcement every day, the voter interprets it as “every day a promise” and the voter is very seasoned in electoral promises. The approach of that campaign failed.
The PP believed that this result guaranteed it success in general.
We knew that all that would be lost would be the visualization of barbarism. That is to say, the PP was not getting anywhere alone and would need Vox to turn those results into governments. As a lesser evil, what was lost would be the visualization of PP-VOX pacts and there the one who jumped into the pool ahead of time was the Valencian president, Carlos Mazón. All this brings me to what I have already mentioned: there was no need to pay attention to the mobilization of the left, because the left is not stupid. There is no need to explain anything, the left mobilizes alone seeing that the Valencian Community has fallen into the hands of the PP with Vox. And we saw that that PP that resists, which is the Extremaduran, is immediately disciplined by Madrid.
Do you think that's why Pedro Sánchez called the general elections immediately?
Well, what had happened is that the autonomous political class of the PSOE became a wasteland and all eyes turned towards Moncloa. And it must be recognized that Sánchez has the instinct to resolve complicated situations. In other words, two positive things can be said about Pedro Sánchez.
I hear you.
The first: since we lost Cuba and the Philippines, Spain has never painted so much in foreign policy as with Pedro Sánchez.
¡Boom!
It's like that. And the second: he has the instinct to resolve complicated situations. In those elections we had a PP that had disrupted bloc arithmetic. When Pablo Casado was killed and Alberto Núñez Feijóo appeared, there was a moment when Vox had skyrocketed in the polls. The elections in Castilla y León were anticipated and the final result was to replace a docile partner, which was Ciudadanos, with the ogre. And why did they anticipate?
Because?
There are two factors there: one factor was Narciso Michavila and the other was you.
Sorry?
Michavila knew that Vox came in at 13% – which is what it got, 13.5% – and you were publishing reports about the new factor of those elections in the provinces: emptied Spain. In other words, an alternative arithmetic appeared in the heads of the PP gentlemen who said “we can't wait, we have to bring forward elections.” It was you two who took them to the garden.
Kill me truck.
And we reached that electoral failure and that's when the San Quentin one was set up. That summer of 2022, already with Feijóo, block arithmetic was absolutely broken. In other words, Feijóo reached astronomical numbers, and that with Vox in high numbers. Almost with 190 seats, with a transfer of votes from the PSOE to the giant PP. When we reach the eve of the elections, the PSOE applies that party approach that consists of always doing the same thing: trying to mobilize the left. I disagree. The left will mobilize because of the nature of the election, not because you tell them to. What needs to be done is to stop the transfer of votes to the PP. How is the transfer of votes to the PP stopped? Well, there were two main elements: Nadia Calviño and Margarita Rueda. Because? Well, because these two women had penetration into that electorate that was leaving, voters from position five and six on the ideological scale who had a very high evaluation of the two, much higher than what they had of Pedro Sánchez. But Margarita Robles did not appear during the campaign and Nadia Calviño made some appearances at the beginning. Although I disagree with the vote allocation that José Félix Tezanos makes in the CIS and what he did in the macro-poll prior to the campaign, which was not fulfilled, he was correct in the flash study that was carried out during the campaign, and there it was already seen that Yes, we were far from where the right-wing polls said we were and that the thing was disputed. The result came out, first because Podemos and Sumar went together. If they had gone separately, it was impossible to gather thirty seats. The right would be ruling. And also, because Pedro Sánchez does a round of interviews in the media with his perfect enemies. That is to say, he leaves there as a friend of Ana Rosa, a friend of Pablo Motos... he convinces them.
Yes, I remember.
He goes to that round and nails it. On the other hand, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has appeared. Zapatero is very important in this, because he does this didactics, for example with Herrera, which reinforces the management of Pedro Sánchez. Because there is also one thing certain: the legislature has been brilliant in terms of social policies and in terms of economic management.
The striking thing is that not only has it been satisfactory for the left-wing voter due to the ideological framing of the policies, but they have gone well in practical terms: since the pandemic there are many things that could have gone very wrong but have gone well.
And not only that, but it has channeled the change of era, which is possible, now, in this legislature. Perestroika is viable because in the end we are talking about perestroika.
We have come to the point.
Eight years later we have a real opportunity to produce that change in mentality and in some attitudes...
I'm going to interrupt you, sorry. I have often thought about what would have happened if the derpasso had occurred in 2015 or 2016 and the PSOE had been forced to hand over power to Podemos or to Podemos and IU. And I have the feeling, even if it is a counterfactual, that they would have been shipwrecked or they would have been shipwrecked. In some way, the 2015-2019 anomaly, the years in which the voter's mandate remained kidnapped or suspended, until the Sánchez-Iglesias agreement, were somehow virtuous so that Perestroika, that is, change, is still viable today.
Yes. In my Infolibre article I tried to explain that plurinationality is the opposite of a self-determination referendum. The PSOE gets into this without leadership, but ultimately, I totally agree with you: Here there is a lack of an explanation to the voter, a lack of political culture. As I said before, this didactic work has not been done, but it has not been done since the beginning of democracy. And I think that now it is possible. That is to say, I am much more optimistic now than when I wrote The Perestroika of Felipe VI, where there was a lot of voluntarism. There what he said is “well, this is not enough, here the PSOE and the PP will have to get together to hand over the things to the new ones.” Look how naive I am. Politics doesn't work like that, you only mature when you see it from the inside, when you have five years of contact with them. But before getting into that, I had stayed in the first week of the campaign, when Sánchez made that tour with Zapatero. In the second week of the campaign he goes to the La Pija y la Quinqui podcast, and the interview has 12 million impacts, which is a very estimable figure. That's where we see a human, close and relaxed Pedro Sánchez. He would tell him that there we see Guts' cousin, the cowardly dog.
The one who saw the dangers that no one saw and sacrificed himself for his masters for nothing and without anyone knowing?
Yes. Pedro Sánchez is a misunderstood hero and in La pija y la quinqui he creates a pop icon with Perrosanxe.
I don't know if the PSOE is aware of what the “Mr Handsome” account has done for them in the last three years, by constructing a complimentary communication in pop terms and therefore banal, but very friendly and accessible.
Clear. Well, from there, he is a guy who has unlocked himself, who makes the rich pay more and who everyone likes. He is usually very critical of Sánchez because sometimes he does not seem aware of what he can do at this historical moment. He is now aware of what he has done, but he is not aware of what he can still do. And in the end, it seems that the system gets the better of him and then he decides things like not saying “plurinationality.”
Do you think that the longevity of the legislature may suffer from external factors?
What does it refer to?
To the Washington, Berlin, Vatican axis, which is aligned with Sánchez's interests and which in the short term may change direction.
I don't believe it. I think that the result of July 23 expresses very well what there is. Twelve and a half million people, which is the majority of the investiture, who express civil opposition to the questioning of democratic values. Spain, despite being self-taught, not having received this democratic teaching, which we have learned without the help of political parties, is a space of Europeanism and the defense of democratic values. I see it like this. That is why I demand the reform of the electoral law, to improve proportionality and avoid the blockages to the production of historic advances.
Yes, I have read this to you. But there are always those who argue that it is impossible to improve proportionality without touching the Constitution.
The reform of the electoral law that I propose fits within an organic law, it does not affect the Constitution. It consists of going from two to one deputy as a minimum permanent member per province. With that we would provide ourselves with part of the proportionality that the LOREG has stolen from the system. And it is a sine qua non condition to promote any other modernization of the country. This reform, with the results of July 23, distances the right from the possibility of governing because the LOREG privileges the forces of the small Castilian constituencies, which is where the PP obtains an advantage. In other words, what we are looking for is more proportionality. This reform eliminates Junts' referee role. And how are they going to vote in favor of a reform in which they are no longer decisive? Well, because we all agree that Perestroika must be done. And what does that mean? Plurinational Spain, which can be federal or confederal, may have different institutional solutions, but it is certainly a framework for coexistence of the different national identities in the Spanish State. And this is the opposite of independence, of un sol poble and of the self-determination referendum. We are talking, finally, about a reform of the Constitution and an endorsement of the monarchy.
I understand.
Everything fits there. That is to say, what this reform of the electoral law does is protect this process on the basis that there is a social majority that is democratic and plurinational and that wants to fully reach the 21st century.
