CERA vote tightens Madrid margin, complicating Sánchez’s investiture

CERA vote tightens Madrid margin, complicating Sánchez’s investiture

One seat does not change a country: it changes a price. The count of the CERA vote, cast by Spaniards living abroad, leaves the PP ahead of the PSOE in Madrid by about 1,500 votes—a margin enough to touch another seat in Congress and reorder the arithmetic of an investiture already decided by slim margins. The seat in question belongs to García Adanero, ex-UPN, who had it within reach. The PP, however, needs to widen the lead to secure it.

What the CERA vote count in Madrid says

The starting data is simple: with the CERA vote counted, the PP leads the PSOE in Madrid by around 1,500 ballots. It is not a victory; it is a window that may close. If that advantage does not widen, the seat does not change hands and all the noise remains just that, noise.

This sequence breaks the prior narrative. For days, it was maintained that the CERA vote would not alter the final result. Now it turns out it brushes right up against it. And some recall that this census has already given surprises: in 2015 and 2016 the most voted party among residents abroad was Podemos, a detail that, according to one participant, deactivates much of the talk about pucherazos, which would appear or disappear depending on the interest of the moment.

Why one seat can change the entire investiture?

Because an absolute majority stands at 176 seats, and on that edge every seat is worth a legislature. With the Madrid seat in the air, neither the right’s sum is automatic nor the PSOE’s with the separatists can be taken for granted: it depends on whether Junts and ERC make a move and at what price.

The analysis splits right there. One current holds that, in practical terms, it makes no difference whether Junts abstains or lends one or two votes: the price will be higher, but it will be paid anyway. Another responds that the scenario changes if Coalición Canaria does not enter the game and Junts limits itself to abstaining or voting selectively, because then the simple majority falls to the opposition and decree-laws fall one after another.

The lent vote that binds Junts and ERC

There is an argument that troubles the separatists: ERC and Junts lost seats and much of their electorate moved to the PSOE out of antiestéticar of a PP and VOX government. If they do not now back Sánchez and the risk returns, that lent vote will not be forgiven. One participant in the thread puts it: the parties know this, and it narrows their bluffing margin.

The PP precedent no one wants to put in writing

A third path exists that no one would sign publicly: that the PP abstains and allows the PSOE to govern without the latter depending on the separatists. The argument has precedent, because in 2016 the PSOE abstained to allow Rajoy’s minority government, and it also has a counter: another participant recalls that in 2019 the PP did not abstain. No one wants the bill to carry their name.

Puigdemont, amnesty, and the Christmas clock

The other axis is the price. Talk centers on amnesty, a non-binding consultative referendum under Article 92, and a prosecution that, according to this reading, has reactivated the arrest order to tighten the negotiation rather than close it. The conclusion of those holding this view: whoever controls the judicial risk to the former president controls the price.

The calendar tightens, though no one offers a date. The thread questions how a possible repeat election at Christmas unfolds: are there four months from when a candidate presents themselves for investiture and fails? The question is less rhetorical than it seems.

The fronts moving while Madrid counts votes

Not everything is decided in Madrid. In the Canary Islands, one participant recalls that the PP backed Coalición Canaria to preside over the archipelago without being the most voted party, and asks in exchange for what. In the Basque Country, another holds that, if the PSOE and Bildu reach a majority in the next regional elections, they will govern together, with the PNV trapped, according to their analysis, between two versions of pogre that eat away at its ground.

On the economic plane, one participant defends that the deadlock has its own logic: without new budgets, current ones are extended, there are no fresh tax hikes, nor extra spending on what each considers dispensable. It is not a plan. It is an side effect, and some sign it anyway.

Prediction with reservations: whoever is invested will do so with a majority that depends on no one changing their mind, and that lasts less than it promises. If Puigdemont holds his ground and those 1,500 votes do not widen in Madrid, the repeat election stops sounding like an empty bluff.