Democratic developments have given Nueva Canarias an unusual prominence with respect to the real weight it holds. Parliamentary arithmetic has led to the staging of a tiny party in Congress, but in the Canary Islands it has been fighting for the nationalist electorate since the 2007 regional elections. As is known, Nueva Canarias was born from a split between the Tenerife nucleus of Coalición Canaria and the Gran Canaria sector, where, a priori, the most progressive voters and leaders who were unhappy with the path the party was taking were to be found. Since this bifurcation, we have two nationalist parties on the islands, one in a more conservative location, the other in more progressive positions. What characterizes the voter of Nueva Canarias? Are they more progressive voters? Are they very different from the voter of Coalición Canaria? Below we will analyze some considerations based on data from the CIS post-election survey of the 2015 regional elections.
As we can see in graph 1, the self-location of the Nueva Canaria voter is in an ideologically left-wing position with respect to that of the Coalición Canaria voters, positioned on the center-right axis. These results confirm that ideology can be an explanatory variable in the vote for nationalist parties in regions where there are two or more parties in lisa, since they are forced to differentiate and define their electoral space. This applies both to the party itself and to the citizens, since it facilitates their preferences. Nueva Canarias has always claimed its progressive positioning, both in its alliances (case of PSOE in national elections), and in the attempt to push Coalición Canaria to the right.
For their part, graphs 2 and 3 reveal the preferences for the territorial organization of the state, where there is an equalization between the two electorates in the positions of statu quo and greater autonomy, and the sense of identity. These data are relevant when understanding why there is no radical nationalist discourse on the islands, and why nationalism has been understood from an economic or utilitarian point of view. Both Nueva Canarias and Coalición Canaria have based their issues on budgetary factors, such as financing or the anchoring of the REF. This may be due to the lack of roots of an ethnicity or own Canarian identification, since the prevailing feeling is dual. However, the voters of Nueva Canarias are the ones with the greatest exclusive Canarian identity.
From my point of view, the main Canarian nationalist parties have been characterized by a regionalist interpretation, in an attempt to channel local identity without questioning loyalty to the Spanish state, and as Jordi Muñoz Mendoza has mentioned, paradoxically the regionalists have served as a fence against the expansion of alternative nationalisms. In any case, territoriality matters as an articulation of a main core value, but if this is accompanied by an identity-type mobilization, the probabilities of voting for nationalist parties increase.
Attending to the utilitarian or economic strategies of the two parties, it would be expected that their electorates would consider the economic situation of the Canary Islands as unfavorable. The Canary Islands, due to its socioeconomic indices and its GDP per capita, is considered a poor and beneficiary Autonomous Community, if we attend to the amounts provided by other territories. On the other hand, we expect that the voters of Nueva Canarias are the most critical of the situation in the Archipelago, since their party has never held positions of power. Graph 3 shows this, since it indicates that the highest values are found in critical positions towards the regional economy, with the voters of Nueva Canarias being the ones who on average are located in these terms.
Finally, we consider that there would be a possibility that the electorate of Nueva Canarias was an electorate in a situation of unemployment and residing in urban populations, the most affected by the economic crisis. Graphs 4 and 5 provide relevant data, since they indicate that the two parties are nourished by both the working and the unemployed population. Coalición Canaria attracts more employees, and Nueva Canarias does the same with the unemployed. It is not surprising the ability of nationalists to obtain votes in different social classes, since these formations have been characterized as interclassist, given the policies and demands they handle, transversal to any social position. As far as habitat is concerned, our predictions are fulfilled. As the number of population increases, the vote for Nueva Canarias increases. On the contrary, Coalición Canaria is stronger in rural and intermediate populations. These data are linked to the interpretations that have been made about Nueva Canarias, in the sense that it is a party based in the capital of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Telde, to the detriment of Coalición Canaria that is established in local areas of Tenerife or Lanzarote.
As we have seen, the main nationalist parties of the Canary Islands differ in fundamental aspects when it comes to locating their respective electorates. The few variables that we have analyzed indicate that nationalism in the islands is polarized, in opposite extremes of each other. The two parties have sought and have differentiated spaces, which gives them an advantage when focusing on electoral issues or specific policies. A priori, with this scenario, the levels of volatility in the vote for nationalist parties in the Canary Islands should not be a concern, although it is not clear if these voters can opt for state-level parties, as has happened with the dual vote of Coalición Canaria in the national elections.
Thus, Nueva Canarias is nourished by a progressive electorate, with a dual identity, critical of the economic situation of the islands, transversal and urban. An electorate called to be a protagonist in the next elections of May 2019, although there are still many events to come that predictably change in the scenario. The staging of this last month has exalted this small party, which may see its electoral base transformed given the consequences that its negotiations could have. Intuitively, the pacts with the Partido Popular can subtract support from progressive voters, but the economic benefits obtained can reinforce the discourse that Nueva Canarias is the only party capable of defending the interests of the Canarians. Today more than ever, this is just beginning.
Ayoze Corujo Hernández, fourth year student of Political Science and Public Administration at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
