23-J is still in discount time and the PP is very aware of how the last seats at stake are distributed. In other words, those that come from the recount of the votes of Spaniards residing abroad, known as the CERA vote. This will begin no later than this Friday, July 28, as regulated by article 75 of Organic Law 5/1985, of June 19, on the General Electoral Regime. There are currently just over two million Spaniards in this registry and most of them live in Argentina, France, the United States and Cuba.
How much can this result move the final distribution of seats? According to the final scrutiny, which will be known, foreseeably, on August 1, the foreign vote can tip the balance on the side of the popular in constituencies such as Girona, Cantabria and Madrid.
According to the official data of the scrutiny provided by the Ministry of the Interior, in the Catalan constituency the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo has fallen 363 votes away from snatching the last seat from Junts per Catalunya, while in Cantabria, the PP has left 428 ballots along the way that have gone to Vox. Even in Madrid, the popular ones could take a deputy from the PSOE if they got 1,738 more votes than the socialists.
And it is precisely in these constituencies where the difference in votes lost with respect to the population abroad that votes in these provinces can be key.
There are seven other provinces – Albacete, Castellón, Cuenca, Las Palmas, Lleida and Málaga – where the vote of Spaniards residing abroad may change when their ballots are counted, although the chances are less because the difference between the affected parties is much greater.
In fact, if the CERA census is crossed with respect to the ‘key’ vote, the provinces with the greatest probability that the seat will change sign are reduced to Madrid, Coruña, Barcelona, Pontevedra and Asturias.
With the current result, the sum of PP and Vox reaches 169 deputies, who could be joined by UPN and the Canary Islands Coalition, both with one representative. That eventual alliance would reach 171 seats, while the PSOE (122) with its partners (31 from Sumar, 7 from ERC, six from EH Bildu, five from PNV and one from BNG) would add 172, one above the other bloc. In this case, Junts would have the key to governance in abstention.
However, if the PP obtains the Madrid seat, and counting on that hypothetical sum, it would be placed at 172 and the PSOE at 171. And if it manages to add Girona’s to this space, it could give 173 compared to 171. And in that scenario, the Pedro Sánchez party would not be enough for Junts’ abstention and would need the yes.
According to the official data of the scrutiny provided by the Ministry of the Interior, in the Catalan constituency the popular ones have remained 363 votes away from snatching the last seat from Junts, while in Cantabria, the PP has left 428 ballots along the way that have gone to Vox. Even in Madrid, the PP could take a deputy from the PSOE if it got 1,547 more votes than the Socialists. An arithmetic that seems key to governability in the event that the PSOE falls back to 121 representatives in the event that the PP adds another in Madrid and Junts loses one of its seven seats.
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The fine print of 23-J
The headlines that left the general elections on Sunday made it clear that the Popular Party won comfortably in the constituencies that distribute between three and five seats and that it was contesting face to face with the PSOE. However, the formation headed by Feijóo did not do so with the categoricalness that the polls had predicted, nor did it meet the expectations of the candidate.
It did comply with what was planned in Galicia, where the former president of the Xunta had been boasting four absolute majorities, but he played in key provinces such as León, Valladolid, Cáceres, Badajoz, Huelva, Ciudad Real, Jaén, Albacete, Castellón, Guadalajara, and La Rioja, where he tied seats with the PSOE.
And it is that if the magnifying glass is put on the fine print resulting from the will of the polls, the subsequent electoral analysis yields two conclusions. The first, that it has cost the popular ones a greater number of votes to translate these last supports in the fray into seats than the PSOE. Specifically, 12,800 ballots compared to the 8,000 that the Socialists have needed to get a representative.
And the second, that those 200,702 votes that the PP has received and that have remained a dead letter in the allocation of the last deputies represent 16 seats that have gone almost equally to PSOE and Vox.
The party led by Pedro Sánchez has taken seven seats in the lower house from the PP, which correspond to the constituencies of Burgos, La Rioja, the Balearic Islands, Pontevedra, Lleida, Murcia and Madrid. And those of Abascal have won six deputies at the expense of the PP in Ciudad Real, Huelva, Jaén, Valladolid, Guadalajara and Cantabria. The remaining three seats have gone to Sumar in Córdoba and Seville and to Junts per Catalunya in Girona.
On the opposite side, the PSOE has only needed 104,525 ballots to win the last twelve seats: the five from the PP mentioned above plus one in Burgos and another in La Rioja, two from Vox in León and Albacete, two from Sumar in Navarra and Santa Cruz de Tenerife and the one from Soria Ya, which is left without representation in Congress.
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