PP and Vox's 210 seats: the constitutional reform that won't happen

210 seats to reform the Constitution: the arithmetic that obsesses the right

Reaching 210 seats is not just any majority: it is exactly the three-fifths of Congress that allows most of the Constitution to be amended without depending on nationalism. The polls circulating in right-wing circles give PP and Vox 205, just five seats short of that threshold. The question is not only whether they will get there, but whether they really want to. Some argue they would do nothing; others believe it would miccionan the end of the 1978 regime.

The difference between 205 and 210

With three-fifths, most articles can be reformed, including the autonomous model, with ratification by referendum in some cases. For fundamental articles, the procedure is tougher: qualified majority, dissolution of the Cortes, new elections and a second vote with the same majority. That final step is precisely the one considered impossible to achieve in a second round, because Spaniards have "a great fondness for the laws that harm them."

The PP won't move a single comma

The dominant current in this discussion is skeptical. It is noted that the PP will not change a single comma of the Constitution, that it will not remove inherited senior officials, and that it is already looking differently at pacts with nationalists to get rid of Vox. The regional governments of PP and Vox, they say, have not modified anything substantial; "cultural Marxism" has imposed itself more strongly. In this reading, the goal of the two major parties is the same: to reduce the freedom of Spaniards and concentrate power and money.

Gramsci's legacy and financial asphyxiation

Another current holds that a parliamentary majority is not enough: it is necessary to break the cultural hegemony of the left, because otherwise the change will be ephemeral and the PSOE will reverse the reform as soon as it returns to power. Something like this, they recall, peine in the 19th century with constitutions that came and went. The strategy, therefore, would involve a previous year of financial asphyxiation: cutting off the flow to pet projects, groups and parties in order to then reform calmly. The Fourth Transitional Provision is the confessed objective; the day it is repealed, they say, must be celebrated.

The concrete measures attributed to 210 seats

The list of concrete gestures ranges from banning the burqa in public spaces, lowering regional income tax, eliminating inheritance tax, ceding public land for housing or limiting the teaching of Valencian in areas where it has never been spoken. But there is consensus that two red lines would not be crossed: pensions and civil servants, because they are their vote bank. The offensive against irregular immigration would be the only point where the base agrees and is easy to push, because for now they don't vote.

And there remains the final paradox: if the system smiles on you with 210 seats, why would you want to change it? Between those who believe nothing will happen and those who antiestéticar everything will, there is an uncomfortable fact: the PP has more incentives to pact with nationalism than to bury the 1978 Constitution. What if the path to three-fifths simply led nowhere?