Wednesday, April 24, 2019

The 2019 Spanish Election


Spain's general election will take place this Sunday (April 28th). All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies are up for election, as well as 208 of the 266 seats in the Senate. Ahead of the election El Pais has released a detailed interactive map of the results from the 2016 Spanish Election. El Mapa del Voto en Toda Espana provides a stark illustration of the geographical strongholds of the main political parties.

The centre-right People's Party (PP) won the most votes in the 2016 election. The centre-left Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) got the second most votes. As you can see on the map the PSOE performed well in the south of the country. They also performed well in the mining areas of Asturias. In the Basque region the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) was the most popular political party. In Catalonia the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) was very popular. The left-wing Unidos Podemos (now Unidas Podemos) was the third most popular party nationally.

The new far-right Vox party didn't really feature in the 2016 election, so don't appear on the map. Vox may capture some votes from the People's Party this time around, mainly because  the PP have been hit in recent years by a number of corruption scandals. The emergence of the centre-right Citizens party may also have an impact on the People's Party. The polls predict that PSOE will win the most seats of all the parties but won't get an overall majority. They will be hoping that PP, Citizens and Vox don't get enough seats between them to form a coalition government.

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