What does the legitimacy of the 14-F election date depend on?

BarcelonaNobody will be able to say that the Generalitat has not tried hard enough to postpone the 14-F. One must rarely hear a government assume that the results of the elections it organises run the risk of not being legitimate. The government has not hesitated to point out that the effect of the pandemic could have direct consequences on democracy - it has even said that the "democratic" nature of the elections would be "seriously questioned" if they were voted on in February. Now, with the election campaign about to begin and the suspicion that the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) will end up ruling against the postponement of the elections, the Government and, in particular, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responsible for the organization of the elections, face a great dilemma: to bring credibility and security to an election that they have publicly questioned.

What brings legitimacy to an electoral process? "The elections are neither legitimate nor do they cease to be so, but they are a mechanism for legitimising the political decisions that will be taken on the basis of the results", Jordi Pacheco says, Dean of the College of Political Scientists and Sociologists of Catalonia. The first condition for these institutions to have a solid endorsement is legality, but even more relevant is that everyone accepts the results as valid. "It is very important that those who lose congratulate the winner", Pacheco points out, in reference to a possible challenging of the elections.

The "fear" generated by the coronavirus - the Government has written in its reports - may have "serious consequences" for 14-F, "the most serious would be, in democratic terms, to distrust the whole system and its outcome". One of the consequences of this fear is the possibility that abstention will increase significantly, given the perceived risk of contagion in polling stations. The Government says that the protocol it has created for voting is safe, but it also argued to the High Court that the election day could generate a significant increase in contagion (it recalled the situation in the United States after the presidential elections).

The ghost of abstention

On 21 December 2017, 79% of Catalans entitled to vote did so and an all-time record of participation was achieved. "It is obvious that this now had to go down. We could not maintain the tension that led the independentist movement to mobilize as it never has before in front of a window of opportunity and also of unionism, which was perceived as a real threat", Toni Aira, professor of political communication at the UPF Barcelona School of Management, explains.

The surveys that have been conducted so far indicate a level of participation of around 65%, some fifteen points below the level recorded three years ago. However, more or less, this percentage is similar to that of many other Catalan elections. In five of the twelve elections held in forty years it has not reached 60%. "The question, apart from the coronavirus, is whether or not we will return to pre-independence bid behaviour. Nor do we know to what extent the covid can affect participation, because we have no precedents. And not only because of fear, but also because of the disaffection that can be caused, for example, by the partisan disputes generated in this context", Gemma Ubasart, professor of political science at the University of Girona, says.

International comparison

One of the missions of governments is to encourage participation, precisely so that institutions are legitimized. "A Parliament resulting from elections called and conducted with all democratic guarantees is legitimate, regardless of the participation obtained. However, a low turnout is never desirable", Ubasart believes. The question is whether the Generalitat is doing everything it can to encourage participation, beyond the insistent electoral advertising by mail. "If it's concerned about participation, the government has to do campaigns to promote the vote, and what it's doing is the opposite", attorney and UB associate professor Maria Vila says. "If there were people who were hesitant to go to the polls, the government's disarray, which fosters fear, positions that are so opposed, and the High Court in the middle of it all have been additional deterrents", Aira adds, who believes the thermometer to assess the effect of the covid on voter participation is "adulterated".

More than 150 elections have been held around the world in the last year and about a hundred have been postponed, the vast majority between March and May of last year, in the midst of the first wave of the pandemic. It cannot be concluded that there has been a general decline in participation, which has even increased in some countries. In the United States, the Biden-Trump confrontation led to the highest participation rate in the country since 1900 (mail voting doubled and early voting also increased sharply). It also grew in New Zealand, despite the fact that elections had to be postponed for a month because of the virus. In the oceanic country they have tools to facilitate the non presential vote that in Catalonia would demand a legal reform. On the other hand, in Galicia and the Basque Country the participation fell between 5 and 10 points, despite the fact that in July - the final date of the elections planned for April - the situation of the virus was more controlled than it is now.

Age bias and covid effects

"It has not occurred to anyone to say that the participation of the Basque Country and Galicia, which was 50%, has given rise to illegitimate institutions", Maria Vila stresses. In the Basque and Galician elections a relevant bias in the electoral behaviour by age groups or by territories was not observed, Ubasart recalls. This is another of the risk elements of which the Government has warned: that "fear" affects older people more and that they vote less because of the mortality associated with the covid, and that the territories with a higher incidence of the virus vote less.

For the moment, the surveys do not detect that those over 65 (nor those over 55) are the ones who declare the most abstentions. On the contrary. The last survey by the Sociological Research Center pointed out a similar behaviour by age to the usual one. However, there is a high probability that participation will fall in all age groups. "In the case of Catalonia, unlike Galicia and the Basque Country, voting would be made at the height of the pandemic and the effect among older people could be significant", Ubasart predicts.

The Health Department assures that the situation is "serious" in all Catalonia and in its report to support the electoral postponement it foresees that the occupation of ICU beds will continue to grow during the next two weeks, despite the fact that daily infections are beginning to decrease. By territories, the map of the Catalan regions shows a higher cumulative incidence in the last fourteen days in Vall d'Aran, Montsià and Garrigues, with more than 1,300 cases per 100,000 inhabitants - the outbreaks in sparsely populated regions make the figures grow very quickly. Pallars Jussà, Alta Ribagorça and Priorat, on the other hand, have less than 200 cases. In El Barcelonès, El Vallès Occidental and El Baix Llobregat, where most of the Catalan population is concentrated, there have been more than 600 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days.

Political consensus

If during election day there are many polling stations that cannot be set up due to the refusal of the citizens to be part of them - the Government's reports also foresee this - the legitimacy will be, in the opinion of the government, once again threatened. And, in spite of everything, there is still the possibility that the Supreme Court of Justice will end up endorsing the postponement of the elections to 30 May. A situation that Pacheco would see as advisable. Not only because of the incidence of the coronavirus, but also because of the "political consensus" that this option generates: "No parliamentary formation has presented an appeal. If the 135 members of Parliament agree, the judiciary would have to take it into account".