Lluís Orriols is currently one of the most popular political scientists in Spain. But beyond his continuous participation in different gatherings and television programs, Orriols is a benchmark in the world of political science. He received a doctorate in this area from the University of Oxford and is a professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid. His research has been published in academic journals such as European Union Politics, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties, Electoral Studies and the European Journal of Political Research. In addition, he writes regularly in El País and on the blog paper stones in eldiario.es.
With this curriculum, it is not surprising that it is one of the main attractions, but not the only one, of the summer courses organized next week in Dénia by the UNED in collaboration with the Fundació Ciutat Creativa de la Gastronomía de la Comunitat Valenciana. It is another of the many activities framed in Dénia Festival of the Humanities, the City Council's great commitment to turning the city into the capital of critical thinking and debate, in which Orriols wanted to participate with this interview granted to Dénia.com before his intervention at the event.
ASK. There has been a change of color in many municipalities of the Valencian Community and in the Generalitat itself. For what is this?
ANSWER. There are many factors, obviously. But it is true that this time the nationalization of regional elections, including local ones, has been greater than what we are used to. Apart from a reading of the wear and tear that the councils and autonomous communities may have, which in general, at least the autonomous community, enjoyed more positive than negative assessments, probably the wear and tear of an electoral campaign based largely on the so-called "sanchismo" concept. could deteriorate a little more than the polls initially predicted in the intention to vote for the Socialist Party.
Q. So, do you think that the results of the Generalitat are a reflection of what can happen in Spain on 23J?
R. Yes and no. We clearly visualize what was experienced in the Valencian Community as a change of cycle and, therefore, we will probably see this confirmation of a change of cycle in the general elections this month. But they are two different arenas, there are different contexts and we cannot transfer it automatically. For example, a substantial change is that during these weeks the pacts between PP and Vox. Not so much the pacts themselves, which were already going to enter for granted, but the noise generated by the different issues. And very particularly in Extremadura, which opened an important crack in the Popular Party and in its unified discourse.
P. There is a lot of talk that these agreements between PP and Vox, and the transfers of the former to the latter, can take its toll on them in the general elections. To what extent is this true?
R. I think so. We usually say that voters already have it quite accepted, or incorporated into their way of thinking, that the PP goes with Vox and that PSOE goes with Podemos and peripheral nationalists. This conformation of bipolar Spain, of two blocks, that there are no absolute majorities and that each one will have to agree with the others, even if it is uncomfortable, I think people are quite clear about it.
Will they wear out? Sure, but a wear and tear that most of which is already incorporated into the vote estimates we've been doing the past few months. What I think is new is when the noise starts, the internal divisions, the conflict within the political parties. It is one thing to agree with Vox and do it in silence, hoping that something unpleasant will subside from a pact, and the other is to engage in an open discussion about whether Vox is really a desirable or undesirable partner, as is what happened in Extremadura, visualizing factions internal within the political party, lack of coordination and lack of an action guide. That is what I think may have really worn down the Popular Party these weeks.
Q. When we were campaigning for the Generalitat, there was a lot of talk that what happened in the Valencian Community could be decisive at the national level. How will this victory of the Valencian right affect the general elections?
R. The Valencian Community entered a lot in public opinion as a bastion of the Socialist Party that if it managed to maintain it would not allow this change of cycle that many predicted to be visualized. On the other hand, if it fell into the hands of the Popular Party, that change would crystallize. And in a way it has been. The loss of the Valencian Community has inoculated in the minds of citizens that there is a change of cycle in our country.
However, the electoral results were so forceful that they even eclipsed the defeat of the Valencian Community. The fact that in Andalusia the Popular Party swept all the territories, in all the provincial capitals, is a fact that may be even more alarming for the Socialist Party than the loss of the Valencian Community itself.
P. In our town hall, that of Dénia, we have seen that, as in many others, Vox has broken in, despite having carried out a very discreet campaign, and Ciudadanos, which had enjoyed greater visibility, has lost the two representatives that I had Is it also voting in the towns in a national key?
R. Yes. Less than in the regional ones, probably, but the national arena ends up infecting the rest of the arenas. I think the example you have given is very well brought. Citizens, regardless of how the councilors in each of the town halls had done it, have been buried by a national process of disappearance and on the way to the irrelevance of that political formation. Little or nothing could be done by each of the members of the consistories to overcome this fate that was imposed on them from above. The party collapsed, and when it collapsed, the people anticipated that it was an irrelevant actor, that it was an actor with no future, and regardless of what they had done in the town halls, the citizens ended up understanding that it was no longer a relevant actor to vote for and they repositioned. They anticipated death, making death even more clear and certain.
Q. When you spoke before that there has been a national vote in the regional elections, you made reference to the fact that it has been something very specific in these elections. Why in these elections in particular? For what is this?
R. It is true that there is always a nationalizing process in the regional elections. National dynamics always come together very clearly in regional elections. But my feeling is that in these elections the speeches of the political parties have sought to nationalize a lot. Initially by the Socialist Party, trying to mark the path of the electoral campaign with proposals from the Government, proposals from the Council of Ministers of the central government, wanting to create a climate in which the Socialist Party carries out social policy, policy of expansion of rights, etc., etc. . Claiming the management of the central government in regional elections, the Socialist Party soon sought a nationalization of the discourse of the electoral campaign, despite the fact that the confidence or credit of the regional governments that were socialist were greater than those generated by the government of the nation.
To that was added the Popular Party. The Popular Party also nationalized with issues related to Spanish nationalism, with Bildu, ETA, which clearly had nothing to do with Dénia. However, it captured a very important portion of the attention of Dénia voters when they were listening to the messages of the political parties during the electoral campaign. Therefore, there was a much more nationalizing vocation on the part of the political elites than on other occasions.
Q. I imagine that it is inevitable that what is outside affects a municipality when they are imported "brands", such as the PSOE, PP, Compromís, Vox or Citizens. Are the times good or bad for the local groups, the municipal groups that only exist in the specific context of a town?
R. I find it a very interesting question, really. I'm going to be impressionistic, I can't tell you with any study that comes to mind. We are in a moment, for almost a decade, of high political convulsion, a lot of volatility, the rise and fall of political parties, and the emergence of new conflicts closely related to a non-nationalist periphery, emptied Spain... All of this gives me the feeling that They are windows of opportunity for the emergence of formations of non-national implementation, which try to capture the discomfort of citizens in certain contexts. Both because this malaise is becoming an important axis of competition and because citizens are more open than ten years ago to changing their vote or allowing new political formations. Therefore, I do not think we are in bad times.
Although much is being said about a return to bipartisanship, the pieces of how the system is doing make it very porous to new political formations, the presence of new conflicts and, therefore, to future ruptures in the party system. It is not simply that we are returning to that bipartisanship from which we deviated in an anecdotal and episodic way, no. I think we are still in that political upheaval that can allow the presence of new formations.
Q. In the conferences that will take place in Dénia organized by the UNED you will talk about how the regional and local elections affect the general elections of 2023. Your intervention in the course, specifically, will be to talk about the consent of the losers after the regional elections and premises of 2023.
R. We will talk about many things. In my case I want to focus on several issues. In accepting electoral defeats, whether people accept them. If people become less liberal when theirs don't win. If democracy deteriorates when ours do not win, in contexts of great polarization like the one we are experiencing. I am going to show data from a survey that we have carried out in the regional and local elections, data on what people think about political pluralism, about electoral fraud, about the need to challenge results, about whether my current government is a legitimate government or illegitimate, etc.
Q. Are the electoral results and processes questioned?
R. A lot. In fact, the data that I am going to show shows that Spain should be concerned about this issue, about the high percentage of people prone to change their perception about the rules of the game, about the quality of democracy, about the fairness of the elections, about the legitimacy of the government depending on whether theirs are the ones who are ruling or not.
Q. What we have seen not so long ago in the United States comes to mind, with the unaccepted result and the assault on the Capitol. Is that possible to live in Spain?
R. Perhaps it would not go as far as experiencing mobilizations and occupation of institutions, since that not only requires a certain climate of opinion, but also mobilizing agents who are not in Spain at the moment. But from that climate of opinion, from that breeding ground that led to the assault on the Capitol in the United States, Spain is not immune.
Q. To finish, do you think we are facing a change in the political cycle?
R. The data that the regional and local elections offered us clearly denoted a change of cycle. This is how they were read by the political parties themselves. Hence this electoral advance to try to ensure that this change in the cycle does not consolidate more than it already was, to try to find a coup d'état. But change of cycle does not immediately mean change of government. Things can happen. It is most likely that there will be a change of government, seeing how the results of the regional and local elections were, and the polls.
But it could end up being short-circuited because today there are no absolute majorities and, above all, we are not in a time when whoever wins the elections governs. This has always happened in the general elections in Spain, and it does not have to happen today. A party that does not win the elections can end up governing Spain. There is a small margin that the second can unseat the first because he is not capable of forming parliamentary majorities. But, in general terms, the image of the regional and local ones did show a change of cycle.
The impact of the regional and local elections in the 2023 general elections. Change of cycle?
The local and regional elections of May 2023 have yielded results that, depending on different actors, can be read as a clear indicator of the demand for a change in the State government or as an opportunity to reinforce the positions of the parties that make up the central government. These elections have been raised as an examination of the possibilities of the parties to win the general elections and form a government. The climate of tension and affective polarization does not facilitate understanding to form governments that are not monocolor. In this course, various speakers will analyze the impact of the recent elections on Spanish politics and the possible scenarios in which the most prominent political actors will have to move. There will also be a final debate session between two representatives of the Congress of Deputies on the conflictive political climate and its effects on politics and citizenship.
The course will take place between July 5 and 7 at the UNED Dénia and will feature several national political representatives, as well as expert voices in the field such as Lluis Orriols, protagonist of this interview, or Eva Anduiza, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona .
You can consult the complete program and enroll in the course here: The impact of the regional and local elections in the 2023 general elections.
I have seen him as a socialist with Ferreras today 10/7/23 about the debate, and the only thing I can say is that it is disgusting and he is a sellout. What a pity for a person, I get the feeling that he himself must be gagging when he takes notice of what he says