The PSOE is determined to recover seat 122 to reduce its dependence on JxCAT

The night that the PSOE lost seat 122 in favor of the PP due to the external vote in Madrid, the Socialists downplayed this change of stickers. “We have to convince Junts,” explained a source. A few days later, the party demanded the recount of the 30,000 invalid votes to try to recover the distance of 1,300 votes to which the popular had remained.. First, the Provincial Electoral Board rejected the appeal, and then the Central Electoral Board did the same. Hours later, María Jesús Montero, number two in the formation, downplayed the setback. “We are not going to do any workhorse,” said the finance minister, although she admitted that Ferraz was studying new legal actions: 48 hours later, they announced that they will take the matter to the Supreme Court in an attempt to recover that deputy.

Despite the pronouncements, the stubbornness of the PSOE gives clues about the importance of this extra deputy, the twelfth in the Madrid constituency. By subtracting seat 137 from the PP, the Socialists would be able to break the tie at 172 seats of the current blocks, although it is true that Alberto Núñez Feijóo has not yet secured the support of the Canary Coalition. This small nuance becomes more relevant if one takes into account that with this extra deputy, Pedro Sánchez would only need the abstention of Junts for an investiture. Right now, with the arithmetic that resulted from the CERA vote count (census of absent Spanish residents), the PSOE must convince Carles Puigdemont's party to vote affirmatively.

This Thursday, Félix Bolaños has defended the right of his party to go to the Supreme Court to review the decision of the JEC. The thesis that the PSOE contributed in its appeal consists of appealing to that scant difference of 1,341 votes. For the electoral authority, this argument is not enough, since it considers that in order to recount the invalid votes there must be errors or irregularities that advise this revision.. In his writing, he alludes to cases in which invalid votes have been recounted due to failures in the tinting. In addition, the resolution of the JEC also alludes to the extemporaneity of the PSOE's request, which occurred almost a week after election day and not the day after, as established by the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (Loreg)..

It must be taken into account that three of the members of the JEC issued a particular vote before the decision of the body. Juan Montabes from Granada was the one who prepared the dissenting letter and recalls that, according to the appeal of the Socialists in a sample of 100 invalid votes reviewed in Madrid, 32 were declared valid for the PSOE and 24 for the PP. The extrapolation of this distribution would end up returning to the Socialists the last seat in the constituency of the capital. In his particular vote, Montabes defends that previous jurisprudence does not establish that it is necessary for there to be irregularities to proceed to recount the null vote, which is the only one that is not destroyed after election day.

“The simple objective data of the proximity of results would have been sufficient reason and justification for an estimate of the resource”, defends the dissenting vote to the resolution that the JEC took on August 7. And this dissenting position warns against the consequences that this decision of the electoral authority will have in the future when the parties request the review of the invalid vote.. Above all, the letter points out, when what is at stake is a fundamental right, that of political participation, protected in article 23 of the Constitution.

Criticism of the PP

At the insistence of the PSOE, the PP has criticized the decision to take the resolution of the JEC to the Supreme. Alfonso Serrano, spokesman for the PP in the Community of Madrid and one of Isabel Díaz Ayuso's trusted men, has accused the Socialists of “questioning” the electoral process, the judges, the Provincial Electoral Board of Madrid, the Central Electoral Board and “its own auditors”. “In the end, they are the trumpists,” concluded the popular leader, who sees a “drift” of the PSOE in its attempt to recover that 122nd seat, which the socialists “said was inconsequential for the overall result”.

It is the seat that the PSOE said was inconsequential for the overall result. 😉 Worrying drift that questions the electoral process, the judges of the JEP and the JEC and their own auditors. In the end, they are the trumpists. https://t.co/MlyfUeiDed

— Alfonso Serrano (@SerranoAlfonso) August 10, 2023

Cuca Gamarra, general secretary of the PP, has elaborated on the idea and has encouraged the Socialists to “assume the result” of 23-J. “They neither congratulate the winner nor do they want State policy,” said the popular number two, who has accused the PSOE of “trying to prosecute” the electoral result. The messages of the leaders of the PP agree with the main thesis that Alberto Núñez Feijóo has maintained since 23-J and that consists of remembering that his party is the first force and that, therefore, it corresponds to him to govern and it is the PSOE who should give way to Galician and not attempt an investiture with Basque, Catalan and Galician nationalists.