In Lanzarote, nothing is written in stone anymore, and the elections of November 20th have proven it once again, taking a new turn in the island's political landscape and changing the order of forces once again. Citizens (those who ...
In Lanzarote, nothing is written in stone anymore, and the elections of November 20th have proven it once again, taking a new turn in the island's political landscape and changing the order of forces.
Citizens (those who vote, and even some of those who abstain) are increasingly clear about what they are doing. So much so that last Sunday, 1,879 people bothered to go to their polling station to put an empty envelope (blank vote) into the Senate ballot box, and another 2,351 cast a null vote.
Among the latter, some may have been simple mistakes. But considering how much the null votes have increased in these elections, and also the historical figure that has been reached for blank votes (maintaining in both cases the upward trend that was registered in the last local elections), politicians should take good note and draw conclusions. And the fact is that these 4,230 people represent almost 10 percent of those who went to the polls, and to them we must add almost another 50 percent who did not even go to vote.
In the case of Congress, null and blank votes also grew in Lanzarote, but much less (between the two they totaled 1,501 votes). Something that, among other things, confirms that when it comes to voting for the Senate, many think more about the candidate than the acronym, since they are choosing the person who will directly represent them in Madrid.
In the case of the clear winner, Óscar Luzardo, the PP tide throughout Spain clearly played in his favor. But one thing is to win, and another is to get 4,500 votes to the second candidate and more than 5,000 to the third, who also started among the favorites. Precisely for this reason, CC should also reflect on its Senate results in Lanzarote, and on why the profile of Óscar Luzardo, and even that of Orlando Suárez, who in his case had to row against the wave of punishment to the PSOE, connected better with the island's voters.
The argument of bipartisanship in the face of general elections does not fit too much in this case either, since San Ginés not only lost some 3,000 votes compared to those he obtained for the Cabildo a few months ago, but also regressed almost the same figure compared to the results achieved by his party in the last Senate elections.
In addition, if something has characterized this electoral event throughout Spain, it has been precisely the plurality of the vote. And the fact is that, really, the Popular Party has not even grown so much in the whole of the State. In fact, throughout Spain it has only gained about 500,000 votes compared to 2008, when it lost the elections. What there has really been is a monumental punishment to the PSOE, which has ceased to be the leading force by losing almost 4 and a half million votes. And those votes have been distributed among alternative parties, such as Izquierda Unida and UPyD, but also in nationalist parties, which have been the main beneficiaries, thanks to the distribution of deputies established by the current electoral law.
Precisely for this reason, Coalición Canaria should also make a much more critical analysis of its results in the archipelago, and above all much more realistic. The latest electoral events reflect a sharp fall, especially in the province of Las Palmas. And although they have now achieved representation thanks to the alliance with Nueva Canarias, the truth is that this deputy is actually from Román Rodríguez, and not from CC.
Now, the repeated refrain of the unity of nationalism, which has failed so many times, is once again resurrected. And it is that a union between the parties that have exchanged the most darts and attacks during the last years is complicated (and difficult to sell).
The closest example is in the stormy relationship that CC and the PIL have historically maintained, which continues to write new chapters. Now, the president of the insularists, Fabián Martín, assures that he is willing to sit down and talk about a possible union with CC, but he says so just after confessing that he did not vote for Pedro San Ginés in the last elections (to which the PIL did not present itself), but for another party that he did not want to reveal. That is to say, he tried to seal a pre-election pact with CC, to ask for the vote for them in these elections, but did he consider that there were better options to vote for, even if they were not nationalists? Or is it that since they did not get what they wanted in the negotiations, CC stopped being a good option?
Precisely things like these are what have been undermining the image of nationalism in the Canary Islands. The "marriages of convenience", including the peculiar support of the CCN to the PP in these elections, and the unions based on what I am going to receive in return, make too clear the absence of any kind of ideology behind these alliances. The same one that often marks the government pacts in the institutions, supported by pins so weak, that any wind seems to make them falter, or at least that distrust is sown, as is happening now on the island.
If we add to that the discredit of the political class, the waste in the institutions and the corruption scandals, it is not so difficult to understand why more than half of the people of Lanzarote did not even go to the polls last Sunday, and another ten percent did so only to express their rejection of all parties.