The PP leader has taken hold of the Greek and Italian systems to justify his proposal to introduce a "bonus" of deputies in Spain for the party that wins the elections.In the case of Greece, the electoral system provides for between 20 and 50 extra seats for the first party at the polls, depending on the percentage of votes it receives. This rule, already applied similarly in the country between 2004 and 2019, was eliminated by the government of Alexis Tsipras (Syriza), but his successor and now prime minister, the conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis, reintroduced it and it will be applied again in the next elections.As for Italy, there is no bonus for the winning party, but the prime minister, the ultra-nationalist Giorgia Meloni, has recently proposed a bonus of 70 deputies and 35 senators to the list that exceeds 42% of the votes in both chambers. The opposition denounces that she seeks to guarantee herself a new term
Feijóo proposes to change the law so that the party that wins the elections has a "plus" of deputies
The PP accuses Sánchez of carrying out "electoral engineering" with the clean law, which opens the door to granting nationality to descendants of exiles during the dictatorship
BarcelonaThe PP's crusade to bring down Pedro Sánchez spares no available tools to try to force a change of government in Spain, but also to disqualify new progressive majories with the support of Catalan and Basque independence movements. The popular president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has on Monday revived one of those proposals that the popular party has in mind to end the dependence on these parties in the Congress of Deputies: an electoral reform so that the winning list has a "plus" of deputies. "A party that wins elections must have a plus of deputies to facilitate stability," he said in an interview on EsRadio, after being directly asked about ways to prevent "minority groups from being overrepresented" in the lower house.
The idea was already expressed in 2018 by Feijóo's predecessor and he himself defended it in 2023. Pablo Casado proposed granting 50 extra deputies to the party that obtained the most in the general elections, mirroring the Greek model. If it had been applied in the 2023 elections, the PP would have added 187 deputies (137 + 50) and would have been 13 short of an absolute majority, which would have become 200 deputies. Adding the 33 deputies from Vox, Feijóo could have been invested president.
In the same vein, Feijóo has proposed modifying the legislation so that the candidates of the most voted list in municipal elections directly become mayors -currently they already are if there is no alternative majority-, so as not to have to be "always looking for an absolute majority to be able to govern". It should be taken into account, in any case, that to reform the electoral law an absolute majority is required, which the PP does not currently hold, and that some of Feijóo's proposals could clash with the Constitution, which defines the "proportionality" that the electoral system in the State must maintain, always based on provinces.
The leader of the opposition has made this proposal, which also seeks not to depend on Vox to govern in Spain, just after accusing Sánchez of carrying out "electoral engineering" to "survive" in Moncloa. In this regard, he has railed against the so-called "clean slate" law, a provision of the democratic memory law that opens the door to the naturalization of descendants of exiles during Francoism, as well as other people with ties to the Spanish state.
"We all have enough experience to conclude that nothing is due to naivety: there is electoral engineering, which consists of increasing by 2.5 million the number of people entitled to vote in a year or a year and a half," he said, and has fueled ultra theories of electoral fraud. According to data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as of March 31 of this year, about 2.4 million people had initiated the procedures to obtain nationality and 545,000 files had already been approved. Nationality gives the option to vote in elections through registration in the electoral roll of Spanish residents abroad (CERA). This participation, however, is usually very low: in the last elections it was only 10%.
![Feijóo during his speech at the congress this week](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 16 9"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Be that as it may, Feijóo has denounced that Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, will become "one of the great Spanish cities" and has reiterated that the objective is to "get new voters". "Since [Sánchez] doesn't get the numbers right, let's see if he gets them by manufacturing voters," he said, ignoring that his proposal for electoral law reform is aimed precisely at guaranteeing a majority when not enough deputies are won. The Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, also joined him. In an informative meeting, she warned that any official who "grants nationality to someone who does not deserve it – through the law of the clean slate – must know that they will also be doing something illegal".
Junts insists on the "Starmer way"
In parallel with the PP's offensive, Junts continues to insist on its demand for Sánchez to step aside. Junts spokesperson, Míriam Nogueras, claimed in an interview on TV3 the "Starmer way", in reference to the resigned British Prime Minister, and made it clear that Junts members will not propose who should replace the PSOE leader as president. "We don't care who," she assured, adding that "whoever comes must be someone who complies" with Catalonia. Nogueras expressed surprise that her party is the only one defending this proposal and denied contacts with the PP to bring down the Spanish government.
