I am not going to talk about the direction the PSOE is taking in Spain, but I would like to focus on the direction in which it is heading. After all, there is going to be a conference. Congresses could be a place for executive accountability and open, public debate on major issues. They are not in Spain, as we know, and not only in the PSOE, since they are controlled by the party leadership (timetables, agenda and, to a large extent, participation…). Most likely, they will work the other way, encouraging “accountability” from those who criticize management, if any. In their normal functioning, they are not an internal parliament, as many of us would like, but rather an instrument of power. This is not a place for presenting reasons in public, but for articulating generalities in a cheering tone. Overall, the PSOE is a fairly democratic party (I think as much as possible with the rules of the game used in Spain, which have few incentives), and the debate should not be considered lost.
Since it is necessary to do so shortly, I will summarize while referring not to the policies but to the ideological position as a gradation between left and right. This is a stark simplification, but it’s a good start. In short: elections have been won and continue to be won when they win at the center of the scale (i.e. where there are more people and where more people can move from one party to the other). The PSOE, however, gave up on the center. According to some interpretations, he was forced, but I don’t believe that. As a result, it is predictable that he will lose the elections again, but with a greater margin than in 2023, and that he will no longer be able to constitute a government of all against the PP and Vox (for moment, barely the first and thirds in Parliament), even resorting to costly measures such as extravagant deals or reversing their positions. In doing so, it is possible that the brand image will deteriorate – democracy needs credible parties and the most valuable thing that the PSOE has is its name and its history – and the reconstruction of the center will be delayed for a long time, or will be let go and renounce to appeal to the majorities.
The ambition to win at the center is not to be a “centrist” party, but to form a broad social coalition of (really) common interests. To develop social policies – as well as to make them antisocial – elections must be won and without the center they cannot be won. The party that polls have pointed to as the winner among centrist citizens has always been the one that received the most votes and the one that, except in 2023, formed a government. The only partial exception is 2019, due to the existence of Ciudadanos, which presented itself as a “center” party and attracted many voters from this position (the relative majority).
The 2019 elections are only an apparent exception, as it was the first election to result in a two-party government. The left as a whole, the PSOE and the UP, won in the center, although neither did so separately. If the PSOE and Ciudadanos had formed a government, it would obviously also have been a winning government at the center. In no case should we forget that the UP obtained good results when there were centrist voters – there were many in 2015/6 – who trusted Podemos. If Podemos was able to think of “sorpasso”, as they said, it is above all thanks to its entry into the center, rather than thanks to its mobilization of the left. Even if another story was told.
Graph 1 shows the distribution of the votes of citizens defined as center between the left and right blocs (or left and center-left and right and center-right), excluding regional parties (or non-state, as is often said) . The series begins in 2018, when the data begins to be monthly and continues until the current September.
The nascent progressive coalition that had captured the center of political space in the 2019 elections held it until approximately the pandemic state of alarm decrees. He didn’t get it back. Since Zapatero’s electoral victories, the left had only won in the center, in voting intention, for a year, between the summer of 2014 and the summer of 2015, coinciding with the first primaries of Pedro Sánchez, but it lost before the inconclusive elections. in December of this year.
Graph 2 is more informative: it shows the competition in the center between the PSOE and the PP. It shows that in the recent past the PSOE dominated the PP in the center, while two related factors occurred: Ciudadanos maintained a certain expectation of voting and Pablo Casado led the Popular Party. Before Feijoo won the leadership of the PP, in March 2022, there had been only one moment of socialist retreat at the center, a remnant of the disastrous polarized (“anti-fascist”) campaign during the elections to the Autonomous Community from Madrid. in 2021, which brought the comfortable victory of Ayuso’s list and the descent of the PSOE to the rank of third political force.
Since 2020, the PSOE is no longer competitive in the center, or is only competitive due to the non-appearance of the opponent. The balance is supported by weak PP leaders, for which the PSOE leadership seems to benefit from the symbiotic collaboration of Ayuso and the threat of Vox. Threat to the PP, first of all. It is a balance based on polarization as a competitive strategy, more or less in agreement with a certain polarization of public opinion, but fairly autonomous in relation to it. The fact that the PSOE has so far beaten the PP in this game is a bad tactical justification and a terrible political justification. The PSOE should strive to make Vox a very small party and if it is not able to beat the PP with a small extremist party then it will have to change.
When choosing between polarized blocs, it is likely that the majority of the moderate middle class, from the ideologically undifferentiated center, fear left-wing radicalism more than right-wing radicalism. This is why we often say that polarization favors the right, we have seen it in the Autonomous Communities. Throughout Spain, attempts are being made to compensate, for the moment, for the support of the territorial axis, available in Parliament outside the left and right axes. It is legitimate to try, but the country cannot be governed for long on this axis; Everyone knows it.
The voter we generically call centrist has a weak ideological identity and is attentive to cross-cutting issues and the economy. The economy supports the government much more than its acrobatics, and anyone who knows the polls knows that Nadia Calviño could have been president of the government with a generous majority. The success of social democracy generally consists of integrating a large part of this ideologically flexible middle class into its coalition. The center also represents many non-union and anti-ideological workers. They may be attracted by cross-cutting policies of general interest, such as pensions, self-employment reform and labor reform. Or with promises of management on issues of general interest: bureaucracy, housing, early childhood education, health… Policies which in current circumstances require broad agreements.
The citizens wanted a plural Parliament and demanded that agreements be concluded between different forces, to the extent that the Minister of the Presidency is right, but I do not know when they said that transversal agreements should not be concluded with the opposition, which is closer to the government on many issues of general interest than some of the parties which voted for the nomination. We will not want them to apply the same treatment to us when they govern. And the citizens will not reward us. Nor did they say that the PSOE should not try to defeat its precarious minority if it wants to govern in the future. To do this, the PSOE must once again solicit the votes of the average Spaniard, of those ordinary people about whom we talk so much.
Possible conflict of interest: PSOE activist since January 2012.
