The real campaign starts from now with 30% to decide

In the age of accelerated information, electoral campaigns could last a week, the time needed to hold two debates and synthesize the proposals well.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 May 2023 Monday 14:33
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The real campaign starts from now with 30% to decide

In the age of accelerated information, electoral campaigns could last a week, the time needed to hold two debates and synthesize the proposals well. Seven days to go and vote, as more and more people make their decision at the last minute.

The CIS barometer on 28-M, known on May 11, indicates that 30% of voters will decide during the last week. 4.6% declare that they will finally decide on Saturday, during the so-called day of reflection. 3.6% will just choose their preference on Sunday itself. Political time is severely compressed.

If 30% wait until the last week, now the real electoral campaign begins. There are seven days left to set positions. Seven days to see if the local debates or the Madrid pressure cooker, inside which the main media speakers are concentrated, rule. A week to continue talking about ETA, a terrorist organization dissolved 11 years ago, or to address issues related to the future. For example: the pace of the ecological transition, the green agenda that the European Commission is reviewing at the moment, alarmed by the extent of agrarian protests in several countries. (See Thursday's La Vanguardia.)

Seven days to finish deciding the tie situations between two or more political forces that the polls detect in Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Seville and Pamplona, ​​to mention four of the most contested cities. A week to see who wins in the decisive Valencian Community, a key part of this electoral campaign. A week to see how the city of Madrid evolves, where, according to some polls, the PP and Vox could end up losing the absolute majority if Unites Podemos enters the Consistory. Seven days to decide practically everything, since there are very few relevant places in which the elections seem completely decided. This is the case of Vigo, a Galician city where the socialist mayor, Abel Caballero, would currently gather 70% of the votes. There is only one in Vigo. The elections of May 28 will be the ones of the shot at the post, we wrote last Sunday. The box will be defined at the last moment.

The socialists want to enter the decisive week with the banner of public health. Yesterday, Pedro Sánchez presided over the central event of the Valencian Socialists and resumed the tactic of big promises to try to frame the final debate with the discourse of public services. More money from the State for public health, one of the main public concerns, if we take the CIS barometers as a reference. Next Tuesday, the Council of Ministers will approve a final allocation of 580 million euros so that the autonomous communities have more funds for primary care. We are talking about an important decision, not the reduction in cinema admission for those over 65, surely the most lax, useless and debatable episode of President Sánchez during this campaign.

The Valencian socialists yesterday filled the Umbracle, one of the unique buildings of the City of the Arts. Today he will make the replica in the Valencia bullring with Alberto Núñez Feijóo in charge. The Valencian Community is a fundamental part of the 28- M. The polls present very tight results. To a great extent, the course of Spanish politics will be decided in Valencia next Sunday.

The PP (Feijóo line) is trying to get out of Bildu's mess after having spent a week talking about ETA, first voluntarily, stealing the initiative from the PSOE; later, dragged by express ayusism. Yesterday, in Seville, another highly contested place, the current ruling group of the Popular, which is essentially an alliance between Galicians and Andalusians, insisted on characterizing the 28-M as a day of national vote against Pedro Sánchez above any other consideration

The other PP (Ayuso line) specifically went to Bilbao to request the illegalization of Bildu. The president of the Community of Madrid symbolically closes the candidacy for the mayor of Bilbao and held a rally yesterday at the Euskalduna Palace. After a quiet walk through the center of the city, he drew an apocalyptic panorama talking about a "Spain under siege". He again called for the illegalization of Bildu because "ETA is still alive". On April 29, before the election campaign began, Ayuso's main adviser, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, who closes the PP list in Durango, said the following in a public event: "Euskadi suffers from an unbreathable atmosphere that the located outside the West. Since when are Basques sad and have to wear their hair cut with an axe?". It is clear that we are facing a rough campaign planned in advance. Tension in Euskadi to achieve an absolute majority in Madrid.

Bildu will rise in the Basque Country and Navarre and the Basque Nationalist Party observes this possibility with great concern. Vox will also capitalize, outside of Madrid, on Ayuso's particular campaign and will possibly do so to the detriment of the PP (Feijóo line). Some polls are already indicating this, for example, those referring to the city of Barcelona. In Valencia there are also signs in this direction.