General elections in Spain
Past Sunday 23rd the general elections in Spain to Parliament and Senate were held. It was expected that the opposition party, the Popular Party (Partido Popular – PP) should reach close to absolute majority, which is 176 seats. But, it only got 136 seats and even with its main ally, Vox, a reactionary party known for their anti-workers politics they only obtained 169 seats. Hence PP cannot govern if not all the parties abstain. The current parties at the head of the Government of the imperialist State, PSOE and the new coalition Sumar (formerly Unidas Podemos), together obtained 153 seats. It could be possible that Pedro Sanchez is elected again as Primer Minister if he gets the support from the pro-independency bourgeois Parties of Basque Country and Catalonia.
In general the bourgeois press and politicians claim the voter turn out to be a “success”. This is because in the elections to the autonomic, provincial and local governments in past May it was around 66%. A very similar percentage to the second round of elections in November 2019, when the elections needed to be repeated because of the impossibility to form a government and the abstention rate was the highest in the history of the bourgeois democracy in the country. This time, and with the fear of loosing seats, as happened in May, social democracy has done a major call to “stop fascism”, referring to Vox. But, even if the percentage of voting has increased comparing to the last elections, the truth is that is has decreased with 1,37% if we compare them to the ones in April 2019, that took place under similar conditions like the ones prevailing in these elections. An even bigger abstention in the working class neighborhoods. Even if the bourgeois wants to portray as a success, the most elected “party” was the non voters.
In the working class neighborhoods in Madrid as Usera, abstention is around 36%, and also in Puente de Vallecas, and in Villaverde around 34%. Also in Catalonia the pro independency bourgeois Parties have suffered the consequences of false promises and it has been reflected in the increased of abstention, which increased 6% more. In districts of Barcelona as Ciutat Vella, the abstention is 45,48% and 38,33% in Nou Barris. Other examples could be Cadiz, where the so-called “most progressive government in history” (which was how Sanchez cynically described its regime) used armored police vehicles to stop working class demonstrations in 2021, abstention is 34,9%. And in Melilla, where almost a year ago 23 immigrants were killed in a massacre, 50,19%, more than the half of the people, has decided not to vote.
In general, 29,61% of the people that could vote did not do it, around 10,4 millions of people, the main majority of it in the working class neighborhoods. Also it has to be highlighted that among these deepest and broadest masses, you should also included that are not allow to vote in the Spanish State. The so-called “Illegal” immigrants, who in many occasions live under semi-feudal conditions. This deep and broad masses know really well that the bourgeois politicians are not interested in changing their conditions because it is beneficial to the landowners of the countryside and the exploitators in the cities.
As the comrades of the PCm of the Spanish State stated earlier: “So, which is the sober and strictly objective appraisal? That the deepest and broadest masses rejects the electoral participation”.
