A device of 1,600 riot police will watch over for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez in Congress this Wednesday and Thursday. A figure comparable, according to Interior, to the security device designed for a high-risk soccer match in Madrid. In October 2016, a thousand members of the State security forces and bodies monitored the investiture of Mariano Rajoy. Is this the most polarized investiture and in the midst of the most tense social climate that has ever been experienced in Spain? Experts agree that ““The division is historic.” but remember that in this country we have experienced an attempt to coup d’état on February 23, 1981, and that polarization has only been measured for ten years. Before, the division in public opinion was not empirically quantified.
They also predict that the protests in the streets will continue until Christmas and then, during the legislature, with moments of “peak and valley”, as the electoral dates approach. There is Basque, Catalan and European elections in the calendar. It will depend on how the amnesty is applied. And finally, depending on the role the PP opts for, whether or not it decides to completely depart from the protests of Vox and the ultras that orbit around it.
Measure polarization
“There is no measurement, we do not know what polarization was like in the 90s, but it gives the impression that the most polarized investiture debate in recent times is being held,” he points out. Pablo Simon, political scientist and professor at the Carlos III University. In Spanish politics there is a double axis that stirs polarization: left, right discrepancy and the center, periphery, and “in this case the two are overlapping.” The current bloc system, “with a left wing, with the Catalan and Basque nationalists and independentists, and on the other side, the PP and Vox” delves into the “political division.”
Simón, who has just released the book “Understand Politics. A guide for newbies” (Alfaguara), explains that to this division is added “existential anguish”. “If they tell you that there is a coup d’état, that Spain is going to disintegrate, that the country is in danger, that we are going to a dictatorship… There are people who disconnect from politics in the face of these exaggerations, but there are others who truly believe this. All that speech legitimizes doing anything, fear works”, he reflects, alluding to some of the references of the leaders of Vox, to a lesser extent the PP, regarding the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.
For the sociologist Luis Miller, CSIC researcher, yes it is “the most polarized debate” and “the main reason is that we come from a tie between blocks in the general elections”. “He 23Jfar from solving the extreme political competition that we have lived in Spain since 2014 or 2015, has aggravated it. The result of the polls between the two ideological blocks is not accepted. “No one accepts the victory of the other but above all they do not accept their own defeat,” says Miller. “The PSOE is going to govern the country but territorial power is in the hands of the PP and that situation will cause a lot of tension,” he predicts.
For this CSIC researcher “the result of the elections, from the point of view of polarization, was the worst possible” But the thing is that “on top of that, issues such as amnesty have been agreed upon that deepen a historical division“, between the Spanish right and the left aligned with the nationalist right of Junts and PNV.” “In 30 years there has not been such an important division in this axis,” he warns.
Economic crisis and covid
“We come from a malaise that has not been cured by the economic crisis. The appearance of new parties increased polarization. Vox was born and grew hand in hand with the ‘procés’ of Catalonia. This discomfort is typical of a modern democracy“It’s not something that doesn’t happen in other Western democracies, there are deep crises,” explains Simón, looking around Spain. After the economic recession came “an anguish exacerbated by the pandemic”. With covid “the traditional actors also disappear, everything has a strong psychological impact, the social nihilism that is imposed is the belief that ‘we are not going to get better’, rural areas rise up against urban areas, rejection of political parties gradually increases”.
The political scientist Cristina Monge She declares herself “quite allergic to labeling the most polarized investiture because in Spain we have had attempted coups d’état.” but warn us that we are in a “very belligerent, aggressive political speech”. “From the motion of censure of 2018 we heard about an illegitimate government and that sneaks into the public conversation, people become infected and social tension goes ‘in crescendo’,” he warns.
“All in all, Spanish society is an increasingly polarized society but it has nothing to do with the United States, for example, or with Brazil, it is incomparable,” say Monge, who recommends the empirical work of Mariano Torcal in the book “From voters to hooligans. Political polarization in Spain”. This study indicates that “the most worrying polarization is the affective, “the disgust that those who do not think like us cause us.” This does not represent “an imminent danger of democratic collapse” although “it does have important consequences in the political system: reduces trust in institutions and appreciation of democracy”, points out Torcal in this manual. All this leads “to more fragmented, less cohesive societies.”
Vox breaks consensus
“Vox is a party that has broken consensuswords are used in the political debate that were not used before, excesses in parliamentary work that break agreements and are an environment that permeates downwards. PP and Vox have entered the logic of competition but all parties should stop and think about what is or is not acceptable. The bad thing is Putting the toothpaste back into the tube is almost impossible“, warns Simón and agrees with his colleagues.
Related news
For Miller, author of the book “Polarized. The politics that divides us” (Deusto), “we are going to experience two parallel legislatures, one exceptional, which will continue with street protests for weeks, possibly until the end of the year, which will continue with peaks and valleys. Along with another normal legislature.” “Vox and the entire extreme right are stirring up the protests. They have international connections, yesterday we saw Tucker Carlson (a reference to Trumpism) with Santiago Abascal in Ferraz. They are well organized, although less so than in other countries. For example, in Greece the extreme right has militias. “They are going to continue on the street and if the ultras that orbit around manage to organize themselves every time something happens, it will be worse.”
“Political tension will continue to rise but there will come a time when it will begin to ease. With Podemos gone, Sumar has a very different language, so The problem is right now in the discourse of the right, from Vox, and from whatever the PP allows itself to be dragged along. Also from Junts, which is also right-wing, although in the left-wing block. That’s why I always ask Why do they call it polarization when they mean right-wing?“says Monge. In his opinion, “the PP needs Vox to weaken and the protests in the street, the confrontation with Catalonia, are what most feeds the extreme right in Spain. They are giving him gasoline. “Much of this fire will depend on the attitude of the PP.”