The Spanish electoral system forces 52 battles to be fought, one per province, and the vote will be strategic in various ‘hot areas’ of the map to decide who governs the next four years
“The Spanish electoral system is a three in one. A system that works as a kind of Swiss knife”, explains Pablo Simon, political scientist and professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid. In the headquarters of each party, the maps of Spain are displayed to decide where the rallies are held and it would be easy to analyze where the commitment of each formation is based on the programming of the acts of the candidates, especially in the final stretch, when they are most pressing. Now the analyzes are refined to see where there are more deputies at stake that will be decisive in the scrutiny. In this country, general elections are fought 52 battlesone per province, and the ‘plumbers’ of the parties know where it is worth pressing to take a seat that dances in the last moment. This Sunday the elections are decided by “three Spains”, says Simón.
Experts say that, according to the surveys of the last few days, “there are small provinces where there may be a turnaround of just five deputies“That it can change everything and go from giving the government to the right-wing bloc, which starts as a favourite, to leading to the blockade and leaving Spain without a clear executive. Experts point out a dozen provinces with seats in the air which can be decisive. In addition, in the PP they admitted in recent days that there were “12 or 13 seats at stake” that depended on the undecided.
Premium to the strong
The electoral system favors the favorite parties, the strongest ones, and in some provinces the price that some candidates must pay to enter the cast is much higher than in others. He undecided vote it will be much more important in those provinces where the distance to get the last seat is smaller. Where more are distributed, there is more dancing. The parties know, with polls in hand, where they have seats in the air that can give them or take away electoral victory or the sum for the government. is vote strategic that will be decisive in the scrutiny of this 23J.
simon divides the map of Spain in three to understand how the Spanish electoral system works and how much it costs in each province to get the last seat. Each of these Spains contributes approximately a third of the 350 deputies to the Congress of Deputies. The absolute majority that allows governance is 176.
In it first group there are those provinces that contribute more than ten deputies. Madrid (37), Barcelona (32), Seville (12), Malaga (11), Valencia (16), Alicante (12), Murcia (10) make up the group where the electoral system has a very high proportionality. “They are provinces where the last seat is achieved with 5% of the votes, with 4%. It is very proportional & rdquor ;, indicates the expert. The undecided, who doubt until the last moment about which ballot to choose, can vote without making any guesses because their vote will not be decisive.
The second Spain electoral would be made up of those provinces where between 9 and six deputies, approximately. Intermediate provinces such as Cádiz (9), the Balearic Islands, Bizkaia, A Coruña, Las Palmas (8), Asturias, Zaragoza, Granada, Pontevedra, Santa Cruz de Tenerife or Zaragoza (7) and Córdoba, Gipuzkoa, Girona, Tarragona, Almería and Toledo (6). In these provinces it takes between 10% and 11% to take the last seat. Due to the mathematical effect of the D’Hondt method, they are smaller provinces where you need to be stronger to get a deputy. In this second map the last dance begins to be more important between PSOE and PP, and Vox and Sumar have fewer possibilities.
They will be the most important provinces for the third place dispute between Vox and Sumar. A fight that could be key to tipping the balance towards a government of the left or the right in Spain. In terms of vote distribution, Vox looks more to inland Spain, to the rural environment, and Sumar to the cities.
In the third Spain there are the smallest provinces, those that contribute between one and five deputies to Congress and where it takes at least 15% to take the last seat at stake. The distribution of seats in this part of the map is more predictable. Cantabria, Castellón, Ciudad Real, Badajoz, Huelva, Navarra, Valladolid, Jaén (5); León, Lleida, Lugo, Rioja, Salamanca, Burgos, Cáceres, Albacete, Ourense, Álava (4); Ávila, Guadalajara, Huesca, Cuenca, Palencia, Segovia, Teruel, Zamora (3), Soria (2) and Ceuta and Melilla (1) add up to another hundred deputies in Congress. “In Soria, the last deputy costs 24% of the votes,” warns Simón. In these provinces, the vote concentrates on the two largest parties, PSOE and PP, and the undecided must refine a lot in the event that they do not want to reinforce the winner. Parties that do not obtain a very high percentage of votes stay offside because a greater concentration of the vote is needed.
It is what Simón calls “Spain without a coast”, because with few exceptions it corresponds more to the interior, where there is less population. In these provinces, the theft of seats from one candidacy to another is more difficult. For example in The Rioja, the most common result is two PP-two PSOE; If the PP were to win 3-1, it would be a sign of a popular victory in the country.
In the strategies of the parties, this map is carefully watched to dispute seats during the campaign, especially in the final stretch, when it is time to press with the undecided. A bag of 10% of voters, some 3.5 million Spaniards, who can tip the scales in the last moment. The parties manage that there are almost ten seats in the air until the last moment. The three Spains go to the polls this Sunday to give their final verdict.