The 934 votes that could make the PSOE fall in Asturias
Electoral night has left such a tight scenario in Asturias that victory is pending the foreign vote, which will be counted next Friday. With 98.40% scrutinized, the socialist Adrián Barbón wins the elections but does so with punishment. Lose a deputy and see how the PP achieves its best result in 15 years. Diego Canga, the official of the European Union chosen by Alberto Núñez Feijóo to awaken his party in the socialist bastion, goes from 10 to 17 seats and remains only two from the PSOE, so close that the blocks could end up indicating who presides the Principality.
“We are 934 votes away in the eastern constituency from being able to snatch a deputy from the PSOE and, therefore, the sum in Asturias can give to bring about the change that Asturians have waited for and want so much,” he proclaimed this Monday. the general secretary of the regional PP, Álvaro Queipo.
The left and the right have remained practically equal in Asturias not only because of the behavior of the two main parties. Vox goes from being the weakest force in the General Meeting to third position, doubling its representatives and reaching four. Call for Asturias (IU and Más País) concentrates the vote to the left of the PSOE and grows one deputy to achieve three. It does so at the expense of Podemos, which pays for internal tensions by leaving all its seats except one, which will go to Cova Tomé, in conflict with the national and regional leadership. With only one deputy there is also a Forum. Ciudadanos, which in the last legislature was the third force with five seats, disappears from the regional Parliament.
If this distribution is confirmed, the three left-wing parties -PSOE, IU and Podemos- would add 23 deputies with an absolute majority compared to 22 from the center-right bloc -PP, Vox and Foro- in an autonomous parliament whose investiture system allows the appointment of a president in the second ballot the candidate with the most support.
Queipo has warned this Monday that “the game has not yet ended” in the Principality because the recount of the emigrant vote can snatch a seat from the PSOE in the eastern constituency, where 934 votes separate them, with which the socialists and populares would tie at 18 seats and the right could add a majority in the regional parliament.
The PSOE obtained three deputies for the eastern constituency with 15,003 votes, while the PP obtained the remaining two with 14,069, a difference of 934 votes that the popular ones hope can be compensated when the emigrant vote is counted on Friday, which four years ago was a little more than 2% although on this occasion the requested vote no longer exists.
Diego Canga, PP candidate, on election night. . Cereijido EFE
In Asturias, the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA) includes 123,201 people and represents 14.7% of Asturians entitled to vote in these elections, the highest percentage in the entire country in yesterday's elections, while in In the eastern constituency, 27,618 emigrants have the right to vote, representing 46.9% of the census.
The foreign vote already conditioned the results of Asturias in 2012, when the PSOE snatched a decisive seat from the Forum that made possible the investiture of Javier Fernández. Aware of this, the candidates have taken their campaigns beyond our borders. Diego Canga, who is a foreign voter and exercised his right in Brussels, traveled to Argentina, Mexico, Chile and also held events in the European capital. On behalf of the Socialists, the vice president of the regional government, Juan Cofiño, met with the Asturians residing in Mexico.
The PSOE can lose Gijón
Although it has been the most voted with an advantage of only 328 votes, the PSOE can lose Gijón due to the pull of Carmen Moriyón. The Forum candidate was, between 2011 and 2019, the only non-socialist mayor of the city. In the previous municipal elections he did not appear, which sank the representation of his party. With his return, he has shown that candidates sometimes outperform acronyms. An upward PP and Vox can return the Mayor's Office.
Carmen Moriyón, from Foro Asturias, celebrates her result in Gijón with Adrián Pumares. EFE
In Oviedo, voters recognize the work done by their mayor, the independent for the PP Alfredo Canteli, propelling him to an absolute majority in a City Council from which Ciudadanos and Podemos disappear. After being swept in 2019, IU returns to the Asturian capital with strength, with three seats, with the electoral coalition Call for Oviedo led by Gaspar Llamazares.
For Adrián Barbón, the result confirms that Asturias has become “a focus of progressive resistance” against the advance of the right in the rest of Spain and has managed to “resist” despite facing these elections in a “totally different” context of 2019 when the Asturian socialists had “a tailwind and now it was coming from the front”.
For his part, the head of the PP list, Diego Canga, has warned that it is still possible for the popular to tie in the number of deputies for the emigrant vote and has proclaimed that “the socialist roller has ended” having achieved his party their best result in 15 years at the regional and municipal level, given that they can raise their mayoralties from seven to 15. Canga recalled that the reform of the Statute of Autonomy on which the officiality of the Asturian depends will now depend on the PP, which slows down its approval.
Ciudadanos has described the result as bad “without palliatives”, which gives the relief as the third political force to Vox, whose candidate, Carolina López, has warned that “this is not the time to celebrate” since the PSOE will continue to govern while the forum member Adrián Pumares has stressed that his party “has a future” and that three years ago it was “an odyssey” to think that they would continue on the General Board.
In addition, the IU candidate, Ovidio Zapico, has already called on Barbón to define his model for Asturias and guarantee that they will provide “stability” as long as there are policies of change and has considered that his three seats lay “the foundations” of the Sumar de Yolanda Díaz in the Principality.
Finally, the one who will be the only representative of Podemos in the regional parliamentarian, Cova Tomé, has lamented a result that is also the result of the “many obstacles” of her candidacy due to the open crisis in the purple party and has demanded that work be done to look for “a common space” to the left of the PSOE.