Raúl Piña Vigo

Vigo

Updated Sunday, February 11, 2024-02:53

  • Elections The Galician village that explains the present: collapse of Díaz, nationalists in orbit

  • Elections Protests trigger the fight for the rural vote: 7.5 million voters, 80% of Galician municipalities of the PP and Sánchez is now accelerating measures

In

Galicia

, according to official data, it can rain between 150-200 days per year. For the PSOE it is always a rainy day in regional elections, such as those held on Sunday. You need an umbrella. Their downpour falls in the form of abstention, because in the municipal and general elections, the sun does rise. The socialists present an endemic problem in this region: their voters stay on the couch at home when voting for the

Xunta

, but they do mobilize to elect mayor or president of the Government. «Many of our people consider it lost at the start and do not vote. People who resign. We have to break that dynamic,” they say from the socialist engine room. "We have to get the people who stay at home out."

It is the great challenge of the PSOE in these elections. Because as several people who are on the ground, campaigning, recognize, “there are clear things: the absolute majority of the PP is there; BNG is very strong; and we endure. Mobilization is obsession. End this curse that keeps voters on the couch on regional election Sundays.

The data is eloquent: in the 2016 regional elections, the PSOE received

256,381

votes and

253,750

in 2020. Data very far from the

420,377

socialist ballots harvested in the municipal elections of May 2023 or the

496,379

in 2019. Not to mention the results that the socialists have had in Galicia in the last general elections:

486,832

in July 2023 and

465,026

in 2019.

Hence, the message displayed by socialist officials and leaders is to make their people aware that "there is a party." «We have a tradition: in all regional elections we get fewer votes than in municipal and general elections, it is a constant. “We want to break it,” they say from the socialist leadership. «We have to break that dynamic, this is not won in advance and we are on the verge of change. “We need to get that vote out and get it out now.”

Results of the PSOE in Galicia

- Regional 2020: 253,750 votes

- Regional elections in 2016: 256,381 votes

- Municipal elections of 2023: 420,377 votes

- Municipal elections of 2019: 496,379 votes

- 2023 General: 486,832 votes

- 2019 General: 465,026 votes

Pedro Sánchez, who yesterday starred in the central campaign event in Vigo, is at the head of collecting votes trapped on the couch: «In this last week I ask those who voted for the socialist and progressive 23-J not to look around. other side. Everyone to vote en masse to send the PP home. "That is what we have to do with the vote for the PSOE."

Direct and clear, knowing at street level about this Achilles heel, was

Elena Espinosa

, head of the list for

Pontevedra

: «We have to encourage everyone to vote. "No one can stay at home, everyone can vote."

The data handled by the socialists says that a large part of the support they achieve in the municipal and general elections goes to abstention, and a part to the BNG, in the regional elections. According to CIS data published on February 5, the PSOE only has a voter loyalty of

47.5%

compared to

80.1%

for the PP and

79.3%

for the BNG. What's more, the socialists also have the highest percentage of undecided voters, of voters who do not know which ballot to take: 16.7% of those who voted for them in 2020.

Pedro Sánchez, at a rally in Vigo.ROSA GONZÁLEZ

"There is a party," they repeat in the PSOE. They seek to erase the "resignation" of their voters after four absolute majorities in a row for Alberto Núñez Feijóo. They try to land the ball on the grass of investments, infrastructure, the primary sector, social services, while relying on the measures promoted by the Government - revaluation of pensions, aid to the countryside, increase in the minimum wage, equality law -, and initiative announcements from the Council of Ministers that Sánchez anticipates at the rallies.

He did it yesterday in

Vigo

, announcing the formalization on Tuesday of a line of guarantees of up to 2,500 million so that young people and families with minors in their care can afford to buy a home. An initiative that, however, was already promoted in May 2023 and is now formalized. No sign of the amnesty. It does not exist in the campaign.

"If the numbers work in Galicia, there will be change," they say from the PSOE headquarters, taking for granted a coalition with the BNG, with the nationalists with the baton of command. The accounts look at the remains, the last deputies for each province, where in some Sumar is very close to snatching that last seat from the PP.

But when they write numbers on the blackboard, they cry out: “There is a tragedy. Podemos is not above 1% in any province and those tenths are what Sumar is missing. That's how raw it is. And everything will be decided by the last deputy in the four provinces.