Spain’s political parties prepare to hit the campaign trail

THE PP’s presidential candidate Alberto Nuñez Feijoo will set the election campaign ball rolling just before midnight on July 6 in Castellfefels (Barcelona).

First, though, he will have paid a  brief visit to Os Peares (Orense), the village (population 63) where he was born in September 1961, although the tribute to his birthplace will not be lengthy.

From here he will go to Castelldefels (Barcelona) for the traditional pasting-up of the first election posters.

The choice of Castelldefels is deliberate as it is one of the few Catalan municipalities with a PP mayor, in this case Manu Reyes.  Another is Badalona (Barcelona), where former senator  Xavier Garcia Albiol – a high-ranking party stalwart for decades – won back the city where he had been mayor in the past – on May 28.

Nostalgia apart, the Os Peares stopover was a deliberate choice, underlining Feijoo’s commitment to rural Spain as well as the empty, depopulated areas which, incidentally and not entirely coincidentally, tend to vote for the PP or Vox.

But Feijoo is also paying special attention to Cataluña, as the Castelldefels visit will be the third to the region in 10 days.

Catalan daily La Vanguardia, which is nationalist but not separatist, described Cataluña on July 4 as one of the PP’s “black holes.”

In the November 2019 general election, when Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo headed the PP’s voting list for Barcelona, they obtained only two seats in the central parliament, three fewer than in 2014 and well below the 11 the party won in 2011.

Ironically, the PP’s unyielding stance on Cataluña wins votes for the party outside the region but disappointingly few so far inside the four provinces of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona.

From here Feijoo goes on to Andalucia, Spain’s most-populated region, with 8.5 million inhabitants who will send 61 MPs to the central parliament, compared with Cataluña’s 7.5 million population and 48 MPs.

Poll predictions

DATOSRTVE, which takes an average of the country’s principal polls, confirmed on July 3 a slight dip for the PP and Vox and a slight rise for the PSOE.

Nevertheless, the overall results pointed to a clear victory for Feijoo and the PP with 33 per cent of the vote and 138 seats in the central parliament, 12 percentage points more than in the 2019 general election and 49 more MPs.  The PP alone would have more seats than the PSOE and Sumar together, according to DatosRTVE.  This  translates into an overall majority once Vox’s 14.1 per cent of the vote and predicted 40 seats are taken into account.

The PSOE would be the second most-voted party on 27.1 per cent and 104 seats in the central parliament, almost one percentage point and 16 MPs fewer than at present.

Sumar – a merger of 17 parties to the left of the PSOE – is gradually inching upward with 13.2  per cent of the vote and 32 seats, but still short of the 38 seats won by Unidas Podemos and Mas Pais in 2019.