No Revolution In Frigiliana

Yesterday saw elections to the Junta de Andalucía. The results are now known and locally the biggest impact on the voting pattern has been the relative success of two new parties, Podemos and C's, who took 18% of the votes, mainly from Partido Popular and Partido Andalucista; the socialist vote represented by PSOE and Izquierda Únida was virtually unchanged.

Interestingly, PP and PA are the current ruling coalition in the village, so I wonder if this tells us anything about the likely outcome of the local elections in May.

Of course the local result yesterday means nothing in itself; it is the result for the whole of Andalucía that counts. There were three parties with seats in the retiring Junta, PSOE, PP and IU. The new Junta now has five. Podemos and C's have both won seats. Indeed, out of a total of 109 seats, these two parties hold 24. PSOE and IU have 52 seats jointly which deprives them of their previous ability to govern in coalition, whilst PP are the main losers and hold 33 seats having lost 17. So a coalition is required. My hunch is that it will be three-way, PSOE, Podemos and IU, although the first two would have a workable majority on their own.

The other significant party over recent months, UPyD (Union, Progress and Democracy) failed to reach the 5% threshold and so once again did not win a seat. Their very strong focus on being the 'clean', anti-corruption party appears to have cut no ice.