Together, but not scrambled

The possible regional pact between Coalición Canaria and the Partido Popular seems to be drifting. The formations are unable to reach points of agreement, vetoing each initiative on both sides of the table. And there is a lot at stake. Not only because the political-institutional context is in the middle of the legislature, which causes parties to be skeptical when it comes to forming coalitions, but because there is much to gain (and lose) depending on how the equation is formulated.

From political science it has been found that legislative periods are important when analyzing electoral pacts. Political parties are prone to differentiate themselves at the beginning and end of the legislature, since these are the two periods where citizen attention is most relevant. In contrast, stability is concentrated in the middle of the term, given that the parties that make up the government cohere and let (or make) their strengths as an executive be seen. What is happening to the CC and PP pact? Well, we are in that period of legislative stability, that is, in the middle of the term and, paradoxically, the future pact would skip it, causing a differentiation between the parties to begin. This can be evidenced in the PP's proposals that deviate, to a certain extent, from CC (such as lowering the IGIC from 7 to 5). Antona's party needs to differentiate itself so as not to be labeled as a "crutch" or "subordinate" of the always colossal nationalist force. This obsession with staging its autonomy means that the reconcilability between the objectives of the parties, added to the contextual circumstances, moves away from a common government project.

To the "period" variable must be added the distribution of portfolios claimed by the populars. They do not want second-rate ministries in which they cannot exercise their management and control skills. That is why, and again for fear of being seen as second-rate, their main objectives are the areas that will receive the foreseeable economic funds promised by the central State, therefore, Finance, Economy and Public Works. In every coalition government, the distribution of ministries is linked to the percentage of seats of the parties that form the government, being in the Canary Islands, in all the winning coalition governments, distributed in such a way that CC held the largest number of ministries (table 1). In all these cases, the nationalists have been very reluctant to cede areas with a marked investment profile, especially Economy and Finance, although they left the latter in the hands of the PP in the legislature that began in 2007. The premises make us think that the negotiators of the conservative party must be cautious when setting maximums, since CC would not be willing to disassociate itself from departments that control the action and management of the main public policies of the archipelago. What benefit would Clavijo's party extract from giving them these important ministries? None. For this, it is better to continue in the line that has been followed since December, a substantive minority single-color government, that is, an executive of a single party with a specific agreement of parliamentary coalition with the PP, knowing that it leaves them in a weak and minority situation.

While it is true that this last option may leave CC helpless parliamentarily and politically, Ana Oramas's card in the Congress of Deputies is decisive to arrive alive and well to the next regional elections of 2019. And it is that the contexts of multilevel governments favor this type of situations, supporting in higher levels, can generate that they support you in a lower level. CC knows what it is to play in this field, since since 1996 it has benefited from the parliamentary arithmetic that has been developing in the Congress of Deputies, giving its support to minority governments, both of the PP and the PSOE, in exchange for stability at the regional level. This multilevel dynamic can generate scenarios where a small party is crucial for the stability of the executive at the national level, but in return the latter must tread carefully at the level where the small party is important. Mariano Rajoy does not have enough support in parliament, which will mean that he values relations with the Canarian nationalists more than with his own party at the regional level. Although the Canarian conservatives claim autonomy, the truth is that the PP has been a party with a strong internal cohesion, where the hierarchy and control of Madrid have always prevailed.

Consequently, what is the best option for the two formations? The answer, in my opinion, is that, first of all, Antona should leave his obsession to join the autonomous executive. The best option is not always to enter the government, since the wear and tear of the executives has a negative impact on the voters' valuations. On the other hand, opting to stay out can be, even, beneficial when proposing policies to ends from the parliament, in what has been called "policy-seeking parties". As Strom has pointed out, and Bonnie N. Field collects in her book "Why Minority Governments Work", "to the extent that the motivation to achieve policies constitutes an important determinant of party behavior, participation in government will not be a necessary condition of compensation. It is not necessary to occupy a position in the government to obtain influence over the policies, much less satisfactory results on policies". Perfectly the populars can exert a substantive role in the projection of policies that generate electoral returns, as long as they have an executive in need of parliamentary support. Secondly, and from the nationalist perspective, a reasonable logic would be the search for a parliamentary agreement between these, the populars and the gomeros. This would leave them in a situation of formal minority single-color government, with strong support from parliamentary formations under a consensual government program. On the one hand, CC would govern alone, without interference in the management of government actions, but subject to a mutually agreed pact; on the other hand, the PP would ensure that its policies enter the agenda and postulate themselves as the guarantors of stability and coherence, aspects that are not abundant on this side of the Atlantic. @ayoze_uam

Table 1. Distribution of ministries in the different winning coalition governments in the Canary Islands.

Source: own elaboration from the data of García-Rojas and Báez (2014)

Note: we refer to the winning coalition governments as those coalition governments where the two parties, jointly, have the parliamentary majority, that is, they do not need support from other formations.