03 Mar The invisible parties and the election polls
They go unnoticed because general-interest newspapers ignore them since they don’t have institutional representation. And that, in a way, condemns them to have no visibility and to not be able to reach the necessary votes in order to start having representatives in Regional Parliaments.
Or that’s how it used to be. This Christmas, a poll considered the possibility that one of those micro-parties, Poble Democràtic, started to be represented and became decisive to elect the new Valencia mayor, with only two seats in their possession.
It seemed like a bizarre idea, and more so if we take into account that it was Holy Innocent’s Day, and the media’s disdain that the news received, and in an indirect way the citizens who vote in favor of these options, who exist and are actually countless. The remarkable thing is that by looking closely at social media and the growing support and activity of these formations, it wouldn’t be far-fetched for the next elections to have a Poble Democràtic as an unexpected surprise which wasn’t even considered in the polls from public polling companies and least of all in media and agencies, concerned only with traditional parties.
Vox used to be considered an anecdote and the Andalucia regional elections have turned them into a key element to make Andalusian socialism lose the Governing Board for the first time in history. Here, in our territory, political “valencianism” had a strength similar to Vox in Andalucía until it was gobbled up by Partido Popular Now, following a long journey of political ostracism, and along with the dismemberment of regional PP, that political space can be decisive for the configuration of the new Cap i Casal. And who knows if of regional Hemycicle as well.
The most intransigent elements, like García Santandreu, have ended up in Vox, whereas the moderate wing, the groups with more progressive tendencies that separated in a real archipelago of acronyms, have started a concentration process headed by a group of committed youngsters who, under the acronyms of Poble Democràtic, received their baptism of fire in the past elections. And now, having learned the lesson, they want to create an integrating and cohesive political alternative that, if it works, can result in an electoral surprise analogous to the one of Santiago Abascal’s party in the regional Andalusian elections.
The splitting of votes and the fall of the expected vote ones of the formations that had historically shared the governments offer a range of possibilities wider than the one who allowed the arrival of Valencia en Comú to the institutions. Or the consolidation of proposals like the ones from Ciudadanos or Compromís
A reality that general-interest newspapers don’t want to accept but which is increasingly attractive for society.
A society that has changed and doesn’t depend so much on conventional media anymore, particularly newspapers, in spite of the fact that these haven’t changed their relationship with micro-parties.
Today it’s a fool’s joke, tomorrow it can be a reality. Not listening to the citizenry is not the heritage of politicians but also of traditional media.