Back to Square One

Apart from a small fluctuation in the number of seats, the results from the General Election last night has put us back to where we were on the 20th of December.

The caretaker conservative government has obtained 15 seats more than six months ago but as their only ally (C’s) lost eight, things have changed little for them, despite Mariano Rajoy demanding the right to be Prime Minister for having obtained more votes than anybody.

The biggest surprise was that despite all the polls leading up to last night indicated that Unidos Podemos were going to overtake the traditional centre-left party, they failed to do so – not even close.

This is interesting because in the last elections IU obtained a million votes separately, so the new, combined formation should have gained at least a million votes but they didn’t – these extra votes never materialized, indicating that the vast majority of IU voters didn’t vote for the new combined formation.

So, the fear campaign shamelessly used by PP worked; i.e., the Reds are coming; vote for us to stop them, more or less. However, by not enough.

The socialist PSOE survived the assault from the left but in the mauling harvested their worst election results ever: 85 seats.

Now the problem is that if the different parties stick to their campaign pledges then there won’t be a coalition government and we’re back to the polls in December this year – one whole year without a government.

Something has to give because no party is willing to be responsible for that completely unacceptable outcome.

The ball is in the PSOE‘s court and whatever they decide; they’re voters aren’t going to like it: abstain to allow Rajoy to form a minority government or form an unwieldy coalition government with the very party that has been trying to eat them for breakfast. We say unwieldy because Unidos Podemos is already an amalgamation of eleven minor parties, which means with the PSOE that will make twelve – a great number for apostles but not a recipe for a stable coalition government.

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