matthewbennett on Nostr: Vox wasted its motion of no confidence and a new option arises on the left to further ...
Vox wasted its motion of no confidence and a new option arises on the left to further split the vote. Yolanda Diaz confirms she wants to become Spain's first female Prime Minister.
Vox lost its motion of no confidence, of course, as they and everyone else knew they would before it all unfolded. The 89-year old former communist MP Ramón Tamames, who somehow ended up as the candidate, did not substitute Pedro Sánchez as Prime Minister on March 22.
Given what happened in the autumn with the disastrously managed criminal law reform that led to hundreds of convicted rapists and sex offenders having their sentences reduced or even being released from prison early, a coherent argument could be made that there was a moral case for tabling the motion of no confidence against the government, even knowing that politically they were going to lose. That could then have been presented at all the election campaigns this year as having made a strong if numerically futile stand against something a lot of people would have at least recognised as a problem.
Vox could also have framed that strong, moral stand against the cynical inactivity of their competitor on the right, the Popular Party, and I’m sure that would have convinced some conservative voters, many of whom surely find what happened to be repgunant and unjust. Abascal’s habitual polarised rhetoric could in this case have worked in his favour but Vox chose instead to ask the 89-year old former communist to make the speeches as candidate. So they just got laughed at and lost, and now they can’t even claim at the elections that they made the strong moral stand or that their leader personally did all he could to raise the party’s concerns against Sánchez and Podemos.
The real political surprise that day, I wrote then, was the speech, framing, presentation and rhetoric of another Communist Party member, Yolanda Díaz, currently the Deputy Prime Minister in the left-wing coalition government. She has been working on a political brand for this year’s elections called Sumar (add, addition, adding up). Her speech two weeks ago in Congress seemed so polished that it even sounded prime-minsterial, and prime-ministerial enough that perhaps even Sánchez and the socialists should be worried in case she manages to grab votes from them on the left.
At a large set-piece presention rally for Sumar this weekend, Díaz confirmed that suspicion from a fortnight ago: “I think that I can be useful to our country. Today, humbly, I am going to take a step forward. Today I want to be the first female Prime Minister of our country. I want to be the first female Prime Minsiter of Spain. If you want that too, we will do it. I want to be the first female Prime Minister of the country because now is the time for women, because women want to be the protagonists of history. Today I want to be the first female Prime Minister of the country because the Spain that women know is unstoppable, because there is no going back, because the future, today, is about adding up and we are going to do it".
Did she say that she wants to be the first female Prime Minister of Spain enough times in that short paragraph?
Eight weeks away from the local and regional ballots, what polling that has been published is mostly where it was before and doesn’t yet mention Sumar anyway. The PSOE is still between 25-27%, the PP is on around 30%, Vox is stuck at 14-15% and Podemos still down around 10%. The last major shift in the polls in Spain was twelve months ago after Feijóo ousted Casado as the leader of the Popular Party, which boosted the PP to the top of the pile generally and distanced them greatly from Vox on the right. Abascal has wasted his major parliamentary set piece to try to change that.
In theory, with Spain’s electoral system, another spilt on the left benefits the right, especially if Feijóo’s PP continues to dominate a waning Vox, and benefits Sánchez as the strongest candidate on the left.
There are no dominant majority parties on either side like there used to be, though. A well articulated campaign by Díaz, based on seeking a historic feminist vote, could upset the balance in a relevant manner. Some reports are already talking about an immediate suggestion of a leak of 200,000 votes from the socialists to Sumar. And this is just the beginning. Also note the comment by Michavila (GAD3 polls) this week: “Yolanda Diaz’s speech is more like the PSOE than to Podemos”.
Could Díaz and Sumar create and maintain a snowball effect through to the general election at the end of the year? Pedro Sánchez has said today in reference to the formal appearance of the new party on the left that "my wish would be for all of the pieces of the puzzle to fit together”. Former Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias has said that “If Sumar goes into the elections without Podemos, it will be an electoral and political tragedy”. Will Podemos and Sumar join forces at some point? Is there an outside chance Diaz could really upend the balance on the left and even end up with more votes than the socialists?
Thank you for reading.
Vox lost its motion of no confidence, of course, as they and everyone else knew they would before it all unfolded. The 89-year old former communist MP Ramón Tamames, who somehow ended up as the candidate, did not substitute Pedro Sánchez as Prime Minister on March 22.
Given what happened in the autumn with the disastrously managed criminal law reform that led to hundreds of convicted rapists and sex offenders having their sentences reduced or even being released from prison early, a coherent argument could be made that there was a moral case for tabling the motion of no confidence against the government, even knowing that politically they were going to lose. That could then have been presented at all the election campaigns this year as having made a strong if numerically futile stand against something a lot of people would have at least recognised as a problem.
Vox could also have framed that strong, moral stand against the cynical inactivity of their competitor on the right, the Popular Party, and I’m sure that would have convinced some conservative voters, many of whom surely find what happened to be repgunant and unjust. Abascal’s habitual polarised rhetoric could in this case have worked in his favour but Vox chose instead to ask the 89-year old former communist to make the speeches as candidate. So they just got laughed at and lost, and now they can’t even claim at the elections that they made the strong moral stand or that their leader personally did all he could to raise the party’s concerns against Sánchez and Podemos.
The real political surprise that day, I wrote then, was the speech, framing, presentation and rhetoric of another Communist Party member, Yolanda Díaz, currently the Deputy Prime Minister in the left-wing coalition government. She has been working on a political brand for this year’s elections called Sumar (add, addition, adding up). Her speech two weeks ago in Congress seemed so polished that it even sounded prime-minsterial, and prime-ministerial enough that perhaps even Sánchez and the socialists should be worried in case she manages to grab votes from them on the left.
At a large set-piece presention rally for Sumar this weekend, Díaz confirmed that suspicion from a fortnight ago: “I think that I can be useful to our country. Today, humbly, I am going to take a step forward. Today I want to be the first female Prime Minister of our country. I want to be the first female Prime Minsiter of Spain. If you want that too, we will do it. I want to be the first female Prime Minister of the country because now is the time for women, because women want to be the protagonists of history. Today I want to be the first female Prime Minister of the country because the Spain that women know is unstoppable, because there is no going back, because the future, today, is about adding up and we are going to do it".
Did she say that she wants to be the first female Prime Minister of Spain enough times in that short paragraph?
Eight weeks away from the local and regional ballots, what polling that has been published is mostly where it was before and doesn’t yet mention Sumar anyway. The PSOE is still between 25-27%, the PP is on around 30%, Vox is stuck at 14-15% and Podemos still down around 10%. The last major shift in the polls in Spain was twelve months ago after Feijóo ousted Casado as the leader of the Popular Party, which boosted the PP to the top of the pile generally and distanced them greatly from Vox on the right. Abascal has wasted his major parliamentary set piece to try to change that.
In theory, with Spain’s electoral system, another spilt on the left benefits the right, especially if Feijóo’s PP continues to dominate a waning Vox, and benefits Sánchez as the strongest candidate on the left.
There are no dominant majority parties on either side like there used to be, though. A well articulated campaign by Díaz, based on seeking a historic feminist vote, could upset the balance in a relevant manner. Some reports are already talking about an immediate suggestion of a leak of 200,000 votes from the socialists to Sumar. And this is just the beginning. Also note the comment by Michavila (GAD3 polls) this week: “Yolanda Diaz’s speech is more like the PSOE than to Podemos”.
Could Díaz and Sumar create and maintain a snowball effect through to the general election at the end of the year? Pedro Sánchez has said today in reference to the formal appearance of the new party on the left that "my wish would be for all of the pieces of the puzzle to fit together”. Former Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias has said that “If Sumar goes into the elections without Podemos, it will be an electoral and political tragedy”. Will Podemos and Sumar join forces at some point? Is there an outside chance Diaz could really upend the balance on the left and even end up with more votes than the socialists?
Thank you for reading.